Not Who You Expected
by VagueJester
Summary: Blake is on a boat returning home, when she notices a cloaked figure on one of the decks watching her. Who could it be? White Fang? Adam? Sun? Nope! Seems like a certain knight didn't join up with Ruby and the others, and has instead been traveling on his own. But he's not exactly the same goofy guy Blake remembers from before the Fall.
1. Chapter 1

Blake leaned on the railing of the ship, watching as the faunus couple walked away, trying to ignore her feelings. Part of her was jealous of how easily they revealed themselves to each other, and the world, something she had only just managed to do now that she was truly alone. Another was reminded of what the captain of the ship had said earlier that day. It was true that she was lonely, having left all the friends she had made during her time at Beacon behind, but it was also true that they were better off without her. Her thoughts drifted back to her time on team RWBY and she allowed herself to be lost in memories of their antics together before images of Ruby on the ground in a coma and an exhausted Weiss being nearly dragged onto a bullhead by a white-haired man replaced them at the forefront of her mind. Worst of all were the memories of Yang. Watching helplessly as her brutish, loud-mouthed, amazing partner hurled herself at Adam in an attempt to save her. Tears stung her eyes as she remebered how easily he had dispatched Yang, slicing through her arm without hesitation as she watched on impotently. How he had smirked before moving to go in for the kill, just so he could make her suffer for running away.

Now here she was, running away once more. Sighing, she pushed away from the railing and turned to head below deck, narrowing her eyes as she spotted the hooded figure through her periphery, but as she turned to face whoever it was, they turned away as well, retreating back inside the ship. Making up her mind, she rolled her shoulders and made to follow the figure, and force them to reveal themself. She was already uneasy enough about returning home after all this time, the last thing she needed was someone following her - especially considering she was trying to make a point of avoiding the Fang. After everything that happened at Beacon, it had become abundantly clear that she was more of a hindrance than help to her friends, and she wasn't about to bring Adam and his madness down on them.

At least, she thought sadly to herself as she slipped between the various passengers on the ship, no more than I already have.

Shaking herself of the morose turn her thoughts were taking, she steeled her resolve as she approached the corner down which the cloaked figure had turned, only to be hurled against a nearby wall as something truly massive smashed into the side of the ship.

"Grimm!" The captain shouted over the intercom. "All passengers must get below decks! All personnel report to your battle stations!"

Scowling, Blake slipped through the influx of passengers and made her way above deck, unsheathing Gambol Shroud along the way. She froze once she emerged and was greeted by the Grimm that had attacked them. Its body was long and serpentine, with plates of bone covering its underside, and large, black scales covering everything else. Dorsal fins jutted out of its back just above a pair of muscular arms that ended in a set of claws that were each as long as her own katana. Its head was shaped like that of a dragon, and Blake had to force back the memories of the last time she had seen a Grimm of that shape as it opened its mouth and roared at them, revealing a series of deadly teeth.

Gritting her teeth, she jumped off the ship, using her clones to launch her further into the air until she was within range to hurl Gambol Shroud in its pistol form at the beast, lodging it in its massive snout and yanking herself closer where she slashed at it with her sheath before being knocked back. She landed on the deck with a grunt, and listened as the multitude of cannons were released as the Grimm dove beneath the water before jumping over the ship multiple times. The crew managed to score a few hits, but they didn't seem to slow down the beast at all as it swam back and prepared itself to charge the vessel.

"Prepare the heavy cannon!" The captain's voice rang down from the cabin, and a hatch near the front of the ship opened allowing the massive weapon to rise and unfold.

Unfortunately, the Grimm seemed to be prepared for this, as its dorsal fins folded down and a pair of leathery wings sprouted from its back, allowing it to take to the air and easily dodge the powerful shots from the main cannon. Once more, Blake tried to attack it head on, jumping into the air and slashing at its snout with all her might, but the only thing this did was anger the beast, as it slammed its towering horn into her slashing her shoulder and sending her plummeting back to the deck below her. She watched as it dodged another shot from the heavy cannon before opening its mouth with a roar, her eyes widening as a bright yellow glow began to gather there. Panic began to set in as she thought about the sheer destructive force that was bound to be unleashed upon her, before a heavy hand fell on her injured shoulder and she looked up to see the same cloaked figure standing above her. The sound of metal scraping against metal filled the air as the figure stepped forward and drew a long sword made of glimmering white metal, while a massive shield expanded on the other arm.

The Grimm roared and released the gathered energy from its maw in a deadly beam of lightning and Blake watched in awe as the figure raised his shield and intercepted the blast, deflecting the beam with and angling his shield so it reflected back and slammed into the Grimm's body. The force of the impact made him grunt as the deck cracked beneath him and the ship was pushed backwards through the water, but through it all, the man didn't budge from his position above her, even when his cloak ignited before being torn free, revealing long, blond hair, and a familiar face underneath.

"Jaune!" Blake yelled. "What are you doing here?!"

"Cut its wings," Jaune replied as the beam died down and he lowered his shield.

"What?"

"Cut the wings, and the captain can take it down with the cannon." Without another word, Jaune turned back to the Grimm and raised his shield in time to deflect a swipe from its claws, retaliating with his sword and leaving a gash on its arm. Blake watched him fight off the massive beast, keeping it from causing more than superficial damage, and tried to reconcile what she was seeing with the image she had of him from Beacon. The Jaune she knew had been a goofball with a naivete that made him almost unbearably idealistic. He had been at the bottom of their class both academically and practically, and while he had undoubtedly improved thanks to an unwavering drive to get better with the help of Pyrrha, and had grown into his role as leader of Team JNPR, that was still a far cry from the man who stood before her.

"Blake!" He shouted, snapping her out of her thoughts and bringing her back to the matter at hand. He crouched down, angling his shield at her and Blake nodded, sprinting towards him and flipping through the air to land on it before he jumped upwards, launching her through the air at breakneck speed. The Grimm roared at her and fired another beam of energy that she barely dodged, swiveling to the side and using her semblance to push herself even farther and avoid a swipe of its claws, stabbing her blades down into the thin flesh of its wings as she passed and dragging them down through to the bottom before pulling it out with a flourish. The Grimm roared in agony, and she smirked to herself as it began to plummet back towards the waves. Her moment of victory was cut short, however when its tail came rushing towards her as it writhed through the air, slamming into her and shattering her aura with a single blow as she was sent careening towards a series of rock stacks not far from where the ship was positioned.

She tried her best to align herself with the water and make her body as straight as possible with the hope of surviving what would undoubtedly be a painful landing when something hard and warm slammed into her from the side and she looked up to find Jaune holding her as they arced towards the tallest of the stacks. Up close she could really see the changes that had happened to him since the last time she had seen him.

His shaggy blond hair had been cut short on the sides, while the top was even longer than before, tied behind his head in a wolf tail to keep it out of his eyes. Stubble had begun to grow on his face and judging by the patchiness of it, he had likely grown it due to the lack of access to basic grooming supplies, as opposed to a conscious choice. His cheeks were somewhat shallowerer than she was used to, creating a jawline sharp enough to cut stone. He was still dressed in a pair of ratty jeans and a hoody beneath his armor, but both the clothes and platemail showed signs of heavy wear and tear with minimal upkeep with tears and rough stitching everywhere and dents and scratches all over the surface of the breastplate.

The biggest change, however, were his eyes. Where before they were light and full of innocence, there was a determined fire that burned in front of a sadness that Blake was more than familiar with.

"Are you all right?" Jaune asked as they landed and he put her down.

"Fine," Blake replied before her tone became accusatory. "What are you doing here? Were you following me?"

Jaune smiled wryly, though it didn't quite reach his eyes, as he turned back to the Grimm angrily roaring at them. "Funny, I was just about to ask you the same thing." The Grimm opened its mouth and prepared to fire another beam at them and Blake tensed as she prepared to avoid the blast, only for the sound of rapid chugging to reach her ears moments before the ship crashed into the beast, pinning it to one of the stacks and grabbing its attention before blasting it with the massive cannon and completely obliterating the upper portion of its body while the rest crashed onto the upper deck before slowly dissolving. Blake sighed in relief before turning back to the boy next to her to find him sheathing his sword as he walked away from her towards where the ship was coming to pick them up.

*(OoO)*

That night, Blake caught Jaune sitting on the deck near the back of the ship, his cloak covering him once more as he leaned against the deck and stared up at the shattered form of the moon glowing softly over their heads. She cleared her throat softly as she approached and watched as he stiffened, hand darting beneath his cloak before realising who she was and returning to his side.

"Hey," he greeted. "What brings you here?"

"I was just about to ask you the same thing," Blake replied, smiling as she repeated what he had said earlier. "You're probably the last person I'd have expected to be following me."

"Wasn't following you," Jaune said simply.

"Is that so?" Blake asked suspiciously. "Then why, exactly, are you on a ship bound for Menagerie?"

Jaune shrugged, his gaze firmly on the sky above. "Just traveling, I guess."

"Traveling?" Blake raised an eyebrow.

Jaune nodded. "Yup. Been kind of just... wandering around. Whenever I find a settlement, I take whatever contracts are there to hunt Grimm before going on my way. Menagerie was just the next stop. What about you?"

Blake didn't reply immediately. She knew Jaune wasn't giving her the full story, but was fairly confident by the way he looked and how he spoke that he was at least telling the truth and figured he deserved the same, at least.

"I... I'm heading there to take care of some... personal business."

"That's cool," Jaune answered distantly, still staring at the sky.

The two of them lapsed into silence, and Blake was surprised by how comfortable Jaune seemed with it. From what she remembered, Jaune had been like Ruby and Nora, in that they needed a conversation to keep going lest their heads explode from sheer awkwardness. Now he seemed to have shed much of the nervous energy that he always exuded. Once more she found herself studying his blue eyes as they reflected the same sadness she felt like they did the moonlight that shone upon them. It was strange to see him on a ship headed so far away from everything that had happened, as she had figured he would be one of the ones on the front lines of the relief efforts she had heard rumors many of the Huntsmen in Vale were conducting.

She didn't know Jaune nearly as well as she did her own teammates, but one thing that everyone who met him knew was that he possessed an unwavering determination. She knew the Fall of Beacon had affected everyone across Remnant, but to see the one who had studied and trained to claw his way up from the bottom of their class so subdued was unusual.

Their silence was interrupted, however, by the heavy footfalls of the captain as he approached the two of them. "That was quite the show the two of you put on back there," he commented, a smile tugging at his lips from beneath his alibaster facial hair.

"Thanks," Jaune replied, a friendly smile on his face. "You weren't so bad yourself with that cannon of yours."

"Yup," the captain grunted. "She gets the job done. O' course, most of the time we only bust her out when dealing with pirates and the like. The Grimm we usually run into are quite a bit smaller, slower too. Anyway, just thought I'd come down and thank you both personally while letting you know we'll be making landfall soon."

"Thank you," Jaune repeated.

The captain nodded and walked away, shouting orders at one of his crew before disappearing back inside the cabin while Jaune stood up, offering Blake his hand to help her up. Blake accepted and allowed herself to be lifted to her feet with ease before watching Jaune pat himself down with increasing panic before groaning and slumping in front of her.

"What's the matter?" She asked.

"I think I lost my wallet during that last fight," Jaune whined before groaning and dropping his head in defeat. "Well, looks like I'm gonna be roughing it."

Blake smiled at the animated way he expressed his distaste for sleeping on the ground. Unfortunately, her amusement at his pouting began to give way to guilt as she remembered the way he had bravely stood in front of that monstrous Grimm's attack and saved her life.

"Don't worry," she found herself saying, cursing her conscience for what was surely going to be an awkward few days. "You can stay with me."


	2. Chapter 2

The ringing of bells woke Jaune as the boat came into harbor. The early morning sun bathed the entire harbor in light and he felt the first vestiges of what promised to be a warm and humid day. Rising to his feet, he followed Blake off the ship, taking in the sights as they walked.

Everywhere he looked, faunus walked freely, talking to one another as they went about their business, filling the air with steadily growing noise as the crowds grew larger and larger.

"I've never seen so many faunus in one place," he muttered to himself.

"This is the one place everyone can feel safe," Blake replied. "No matter who, or what, they are."

Jaune hummed as he observed the packed market full of people lining up in front of an assortment of stalls, their numbers so great that it became difficult to discern which line went to which stall. "Sure is crowded, though."

Blake's ears drooped as her eyes narrowed and Jaune had the feeling that he had annoyed her. "Yes, it is."

"Which I'm guessing isn't by choice?"

"No. Two thirds of the island is desert filled with wildlife more dangerous than seen in the other kingdoms. It makes expansion... difficult." Blake paused as they walked over a hill and Jaune caught a glimpse of the rest of the city. He took in the vibrant colors of the large houses poking up from between the endless trees and decided he liked it quite a bit more than the browns and greys found in and around the settlements of Vale. "We make the best of it, though," Blake continued, leading him down the main road and weaving her way through the crowds with ease. "Most everyone lives here, in Kuo Kuana."

"Is this where you come from?" He asked, before feeling regret as Blake stiffened slightly before forcing herself to relax.

"It is," she replied.

"Maybe you can show me around at some point while I hunt down some work then," Jaune offered, stamping down on the old habit of rambling before he made a complete fool of himself. "Where are we going anyway?"

"There." Blake pointed at the bottom of the hill where a massive, multi-level house stood over looking the main path. The building had wooden siding with brown roof tiles, and Jaune had to stamp down his rising nervousness once more as they approached the building and he spotted guards wearing brightly coloured robes and wielding spears standing near enough to the entrance to protect it without seeming conspicuous.

He wanted to ask Blake why they were heading towards what was undoubtedly the house of some sort of authority figure, but chose to keep quiet when he noticed how she seemed to become more and more tense with every step they took towards the massive sliding doors standing atop a stone staircase. They reached the door without incident and he watched as Blake rose her fist to knock, only to lower it once more, a hesitant look on her face.

Raising his own hand, Jaune hesitated himself, his guilt making him feel insecure about whether or not he should even try to help her, but ultimately, he decided to go for it when he saw the pained look on her face and the way her ears drooped sadly. Placing one hand on her shoulder, he forced himself to smile as he raised the other to grab the massive brass knocker.

"Whatever's on the other side," he said softly. "I've got your back."

Blake looked confused momentarily as she stared at him with piercing amber eyes, and he worried that he may have overstepped when the door opened and he tore his eyes away only to be met with an almost identical pair staring at them both. The woman standing before them had short black hair with a pair of large ears sitting on top of her head and golden piercings in thier sides. She was about the same height as Blake, with a similar facial structure, and Jaune started to find the resemblance uncanny before the urge to kick himself reared its head.

Seriously Jaune? He groused internally. Just because they're both cat faunus doesn't mean they look the same! How racist can you get? Especially after Blake offered to put a roof over your head until you can find some work!

"Blake?" The woman asked, her voice quivering wetly.

"Hi, Mom," Blake greeted slowly, a similar pain lacing her voice.

Oh, thank goodness, Jaune thought before kicking himself once more for being so caught up in his own insecureties while Blake and the woman before them seemed to be dealing with something pretty heavy. Wait, did she say Mom?!

"Kali?" A deep booming voice called from further within the massive building followed by a man who stood nearly an entire foot taller than Jaune. He wore a thick purple robe that exposed a hairy, barrel chest while covering arms that Jaune could alread tell were the size of his head, with jet black hair and a thick beard. He too had yellow eyes, though they had a distinctly predatorial gleam to them as he came to a stop behind the woman who had come to greet them. "Who is it?" His rumbling voice trailed off as he took in the two of them standing before him, though his focus was mostly on Blake, who was nearly shivering beneath Jaune's hand still on her shoulder.

With another supportive squeeze of her shoulder, Blake stepped forward with a sheepish smile on her face, belied by the sad droop of her cat ears. He watched with a sad smile on his face as the Belladonna family was reunited and couldn't help but think back to his own family as they were led through the richly furnished halls of the massive house. He wondered how his sisters were doing, and whether his mom was making sure not to overwork herself. Not for the first time since absconding in the middle of the night with a stolen Crocea Mors, he thought about how much he must have hurt her and the rest of his family, and guilt filled him once more. He had run away to be a hero, but all that managed to do was put the people closest to him in the most danger.

"And what about you, young man?" Blake's father asked with a critical stare, snapping Jaune back to reality. "We don't normally get many humans on our island. What are you doing here, and with my daughter no less."

"I'm just looking for work," Jaune replied, unable to summon the energy to be terrified by the giant man's piercing stare. "Blake offered me a place to stay while I find some Huntsman contracts. I didn't know I would be introduding upon her family, though. I'm sorry for any inconvenience I've caused." Jaune bowed his head and stared into his tea, watching the little particles swirl around in its depths while idly listening to Blake and her parents.

"Jaune was one of my classmates at Beacon," she explained. "He was his team's leader, and saved my life when a massive Grimm attacked the ship we both happened to be traveling on."

"Well, in that case, you have our gratitude, Jaune," Blake's mother replied, reaching over to place her hand on his own.

Jaune flinched slightly at the contact and shook his head. "It was no big deal," he said with a shrug. "Blake is one of the best fighters I know, I just stood in the way."

"Kali's right," her father added. "Anyone who helps keep our daughter safe is more than welcome under our roof. As it stands, I also happen to be the one in charge of things around here, so I'm sure I can provide you with some work after a good night's sleep in one of our guest rooms."

"That's very kind of you, sir," Jaune replied, raising his head to look the man in the eyes once more as a loud knocking rang through the room and Blake's father sighed.

"Damnit," he muttered under his breath.

"Is everything all right, Dad?" Blake asked, concern bleeding through her tone.

"Surely you can reschedule, dear?" Her mother asked.

"No, I've put them off long enough," he replied with a sigh, pushing himself to his feet and heading back towards the massive doors at the front of the building, Jaune, Blake, and her mother on his tail. When he opened the door, they were greeted by a pair of men standing with their hands together and their heads bowed. One of them had large furry ears sprouting through holes in the red hood concealing his face, while the other was slightly taller and had a bushy tail swishing behind him. Both had olive skin, though only the fingers of their hands and the bottoms of their faces were visible beneath the baggy, black and white robes they wore.

"Your Grace, we are grateful you deigned to meet with us," the taller of the two said in a soft voice.

"We had not been informed of the return of the young Miss Belladonna," the other said in a tone that told Jaune they had absolutely been informed of just that.

Something about them raised flags in Jaune's mind, and he found himself stepping in front of Blake before he knew what he was doing.

"How do you know Blake?" He asked suspiciously, making sure to hold his ground and not reveal anything when both men raised their heads and looked him up and down, revealing their long angular faces and narrow, brown eyes. Fast enough to be nearly imperceptible to anyone who hadn't spent months living with Lie Ren and his vast range of expressions, both men's faces contorted into masks of pure hatred before retunrning to their normal schooled expressions.

"Dad, what are you doing talking to these two?" Blake asked.

"This is Corsac and Fennec Albain," Blake's father introduced. "They represent the White Fang here in Menagerie."

"What?!" Blake shouted. "How could you associate with those monsters!"

"Blake, sweety," her mother said soothingly. "What are you talking about."

"The White Fang were at the Fall of Beacon," Jaune explained through grit teeth, never once taking his eyes off the two brothers. "They slaughtered innocent civilians and released Grimm inside the school."

Blake's father was silent for a moment before turning and glaring down at the two brothers. "Is this true?" He asked imperiously.

Both brothers exchanged a glance before bowing their heads, hiding their eyes behind the canine-like snout formed by their hoods. "It is," the taller one replied.

"However, the actions perpatrated by the more... radical individuals of our group were not done on the orders of High Leader Kahn. They were orchestrated by a splinter group led by Brother Adam."

Jaune noticed the way Blake flinched at that name, and figured she must have some sort of history with whoever this Adam guy was - if not the White Fang as a whole. He watched as she started to retreat on herself as her father dismissed the two brothers before storming off, and sighed sadly. Clearly, there was more going on with this personal business than she let on, but the more he thought about it the more conflicted he became. Whatever was going on was not his place to meddle. Instead, he allowed himself to be led to one of the many guest rooms within the Belladonna residence, thanking Blake's mother before throwing himself on the soft bed and catching some decent shut eye.

*(OoO)*

Jaune woke early the next day and made sure he was properly equipped and wrapped in his worn, brown traveling cloak before immediately setting out in search of Blake's father, roaming blindly through the twisting hallways of the Belladonna estate until he found himself on a balcony outside what he hoped was the man's office, like the guard he had asked instructed. Taking a moment to calm his nerves, Jaune knocked on the sliding door and waited, casting his eyes on the lush greenery surrounding the building before noticing a figure perched in one of the palm trees not far from where he was standing.

"Come in," a deep voice bellowed from behind the door, drawing Jaune's attention away, only for the figure to vanish when he looked back after opening the door.

"Good morning, sir," Jaune greeted as he stepped inside, filing the fact that someone was watching something in this general location away until he learned more.

"Good morning, young man," Blake's father returned, raising a massive, furry hand to the chair opposite him at the large wooden desk where he sat. "Come, take a seat. I trust you slept well?"

Jaune did as instructed, fighting down the wave of emotions the last time he had found himself sitting across a desk from so obvious an authority figure as he nodded. "Very much, sir, thank you."

"Please, call me Ghira." Once again, Jaune nodded, but chose not to say anything. "Now, as a student from Beacon, I take it that you have a certain type of job in mind when you say you are looking for work. Is that correct?"

"It is," Jaune replied. "I'm looking for contract work that will help me sharpen my skills while doing my part to protect people."

"Then why, may I ask, do you not go to one of the other combat schools?" Ghira's tone was conversational, but Jaune nearly flinched all the same at the probing nature of the question.

"Politics," he answered after thinking about it for nearly a minute.

"I'm not sure I follow," Ghira said after a moment.

"Whatever happened at Beacon was part of a bigger game that people who think they're way better than me are playing," Jaune elaborated. "Maybe they're right. Maybe they're playing with the fate of the world, even." He shrugged, reaching down to finger the red sash of fabric tied to his waist. "Either way, I don't want any part of it. I just want to go out, kill Grimm, protect the people who can't, and get paid. Going to another school just guarantees I'm a pawn once again."

Ghira stared at him, his amber gaze seemingly penetrating to the very depths of Jaune's soul, making the young man want to shift and fidget awkwardly before he leaned back in his high-backed chair with a sigh and nodded his shaggy head.

"Alright, then," he said, nodding. "In that case, I would more than appreciate your help keeping my people safe. The Grimm around here aren't too difficult to deal with, but Menagerie does not have the same infrastructure to deal with them as the other kingdoms. Our combatants are not equipped to deal with them individually."

"I'm happy to help, sir," Jaune replied with a forced smile.

"In that case, I would like you to begin near the western part of town," Ghira said, pulling a thin folder out of his desk. "There is something attacking the farmers living out there, but descriptions only tell of a dark beast with glowing red eyes."

"I will look into it," Jaune said, standing up to leave. Ghira nodded, and Jaune left, wandering once more through the estate until he found his way to the massive wooden doors where he ran into Blake and her mother, quite literally. Fortunately for him, he was quite a bit bigger than her, and had no problem reaching out and grabbing her before she fell. "Sorry about that, Blake. I wasn't watching where I was going."

"And where are you going, if we may ask?" Her mother inquired looking him up and down. "Surely you're not leaving already?"

"What? Oh, no!" Jaune stammered, looking down at himself. "I mean, I wouldn't want to intrude any longer than I have to... that isn't to say you don't have a lovely home, I just mean that I haven't actually got any money to afford a place of my own and I feel guilty, and want to help out so I asked Mister... er, that is, Blake's... I mean G-Ghira -"

"Jaune," Blake interrupted. "You can let go of me now."

"R-right, sorry," Jaune continued to ramble heat flushing from his cheeks down his neck. "What I've been trying to say is that I'm headed out to investigate some Grimm sightings."

"By yourself?" Blake's mother asked. "That sounds awfully dangerous."

"Don't worry about me, Ma'am," Jaune reassured her. "I might not be as good as Blake, but I still know how to handle myself." Without another word, he quickly stepped around the two of them and rushed out the door, only tripping once as he hurried down the stairs and away from this latest embarrassment.


	3. Chapter 3

"How exactly have you been working as a Huntsman without a license?" Blake asked, smirking at the way Jaune jumped as he suddenly became aware of her presence.

"You do that for fun, don't you?" Jaune grumbled as he threw a glare her way, lowering the hand that had dove under his cloak, presumably reaching for his weapon.

"I have no idea what you're talking about," Blake replied, returning her expression to one of practiced neutrality.

"Sure, you don't," he groused. "What are you doing here, anyway?"

"I figured you could use some help," she replied nonchalantly, refusing to meet his eyes as she watched the crowds around them and the way they watched him with an understandable wariness. Jaune, however, seemed completely oblivious to the unease with which the people of Kuo Kuana were regarding him as he looked down at her with narrowed eyes before facing forward with a sigh.

"No thanks."

Blake's eyebrow rose as she turned to stare at him questioningly. "Excuse me?"

"I dunno why you followed me, but it wasn't to help me," he declared. "You nearly took my head off when we ran into each other on the boat, meaning you wanted to be alone. I might be the last person to reject a genuine offer of help from someone of your skill level - if for no other reason than whatever issues I have aren't worth people's lives - but that was anything but. That means you either want to join the people observing me, or you want an excuse to not be at your place."

Blake stopped and stared at him, dumbfounded. Jaune had been so far beneath everyone else at Beacon in terms of skill that, even with his remarkable rate of improvement while at school, it completely blew her away that he could so easily analyse and deconstruct her actions and potential motives behind them without batting an eye. She looked into his hard, blue eyes and found no trace of the loveable goofball she had known at school, or the nervous teen she had seen less than an hour earlier before her and her mother. There was a calculating intelligence in his gaze that, with the new haircut and light dusting of stubble made him look much older than she remembered and had her wondering just what he had been through since the Fall of Beacon to end up like this.

"You're right," she admitted, filing away everything he said for analysis later. "I am using you as an excuse."

"Do you wanna talk about it?" He asked, and part of her did.

"No," she said instead, her instincts flaring at the idea of opening up to someone else and filling her head with images of golden, blood-stained hair, and fading rose petals.

Jaune shrugged and the easy, youthful smile returned to his face. "Okay."

"That doesn't mean my offer wasn't genuine, though," Blake added a soft smile finding itself afixed to her lips at his own infectious expression.

"Well, in that case, can you tell me anything about what I'm likely to run into here?" He asked.

"From what I've read, nothing like what we encountered on the boat," Blake replied. "Menagerie is mostly desert and jungle, so the really nasty ones to watch out for are Deathstalkers and Beringels. There are a decent number of lancers as well, but they rarely grow to be too big to handle, as well as Taijitu."

"All right," Jaune said, nodding his head to psych himself up as they approached the sprawling jungle surrounding Kuo Kuana where a guard station stood with a man and a woman standing outside, their spears at their sides as they kept watch for any threats within the dense foliage. "Excuse me!" He called, grabbing their attention. Blake noticed the way they looked him up and down before frowning severely when they saw no obvious traits denoting a faunus heritage.

"What do you want?" The woman asked, her large mouse ears twitching in irritation.

"Ghira... er, that is, Mister Belladonna, sent me out here to help with the reports of Grimm being sighted in the area."

"No thanks, Human," the man snapped, his large ram horns hiding his face. "We don't need your help."

Jaune frowned and was about to speak when Blake stepped forward, her patience waning. "My father hired this Huntsman to help us keep the Grimm away from the city."

"But, Miss Belladonna," the woman replied beseechingly, "he's..."

"A friend," Blake interrupted. "And the former leader of his own team back at Beacon. I'd appreciate it if you showed him some respect."

"Y-yes, ma'am." The woman bowed her head and backed away, raising an arm to allow them to pass through into the jungle. The two guards led them deeper into the jungle for about five minutes before coming upon a large open space filled with what she knew used to be rice paddies, but now looked like little more than a muddy field pockmarked with small ponds and fallen trees around the perimeter. Standing in the center of the destruction was the remains of a small wooden house in front of which stood a family of faunus consisting of two men, one of whom was nearly as large as Blake's own father, with large antlers sprouting from his head, and stood with his head buried in the neck of a slightly shorter, leaner man with a horse tail sprouting from the base of his spine. Clinging to the men's legs were three children, two boys with equine ears on the top of their heads, and a girl with patches of scales on her exposed arms and legs.

The guards left them and Jaune took off to go speak with the family while Blake followed a few steps behind, anticipating trouble.

"Excuse me," he said softly, drawing the family's attention.

"What do you want, human?" The slimmer of the two demanded, taking a step forward to place himself between Jaune and his family, and Blake's eyes narrowed as it looked like he was preparing himself for a fight, spreading his feet and shifting his weight on to his front leg.

"Can you tell me what happened here?" Jaune asked.

"Isn't it obvious?" The horse faunus snapped, his fingers twitching. "Our entire crop has been destroyed! First humans treating us like trash, now monsters are coming and destroying what little of our lives we've been able to scrape together."

"Gerard," the man's husband admonished softly, nodding towards Blake as he wiped his tearstained cheeks. "That's enough."

Gerard looked between her, Jaune, and his family for several seconds before sighing and seeming to deflate in front of them.

"My name is Jaune Arc. Ghira sent me to deal with the reports of Grimm in the area." He held his hand out and Gerard looked at it warily before his husband stepped forward and shook it with a watery smile

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Mister Arc. My name is Gabriel, and these are our children: Gustav, Gavin, and our oldest, Gillian," Gabriel rumbled softly. "Please forgive my husband, his time in the Fang has made him distrustful of humans on occasion."

"Apology accepted," Jaune replied, smiling comfortingly at the large man before turning it to the children hiding behind their fathers, making Gillian blush, her entire skin turning a vibrant crimson hue as she buried her face in her Gerard's pant-leg. "I know this can't be easy, but I need you to tell me everything you can remember about what happened so Miss Belladonna and I can make sure it doesn't happen again."

"They came last night," Gerard spat. "We heard them before we saw them. Managed to close up the cellar behind us just as the destruction started. Ruined our entire harvest."

Blake watched Jaune speak with the grief-stricken family, impressed by how he continued to shrug off the distaste the people of Menagerie held for him. He didn't even seem fazed by Gabriel's open admission of his husband's membership in the White Fang, instead nodding along and listening to everything the family, a sympathetic expression on his face the whole time. It was while he was kneeling in front of the twins, Gustav and Gavin that Blake felt the presence of several people watching them. She turned to investigate, but was distracted as Jaune walked over to join her.

"Does your dad have some place where they can stay while we investigate?" He asked.

Blake nodded, turning to face him, only to find him already walking off, his eyes scanning their surroundings. She watched as he carefully picked through the remains of the paddies, slowly spiraling around the house towards the edge of the field as he went. Every now and then, he would crouch down to look at something in the ground more closely. The way he carried himself and expected the area spoke of quite a bit of experience dealing with this sort of situation, and Blake found herself wondering just how he had managed to improve in the little under a year since she saw him last.

"Find anything?" She asked when she noticed him stop and begin carefully examining something on the ground about thirty feet from the house.

"Maybe," Jaune replied. Blake stepped forward and looked over his shoulder at the patch of dirt that was a slightly different shade than the rest. Taking a sniff, she detected a familiar, metallic scent and scrunched her nose in distaste as she rose an eyebrow in confusion.

"It was a Grimm attack," she said. "What's so special about a bloodstain?"

"Was anyone dispatched here to fight off the Grimm?" Jaune asked.

"I don't know, why?"

"Just curious," he said vaguely, standing up and continuing to inspect the area. He stopped near the edge of the treeline and pointed to a tree that looked like it had been stabbed right through. "This puncture mark looks kinda like the ones a Deathstalker leaves behind, but I don't see any tracks that would indicate one was anywhere near here. There are tracks that show something with four paws was here as well, but they start and stop suddenly all over the place."

Blake looked where he was indicating, but could only see wanton destruction indiscernable from the rest of the farmland. "Are you sure you're reading them right?" She asked skeptically. Jaune had never shown this kind of deductive reasoning before, so to see him sleuth about the aftermath of a Grimm attack, reconstructing it from marks on trees and supposed tracks in the mud was more than a little unbelieveable.

Jaune nodded as he crouched near a puddle filled with the remains of the rice Gerard and his family had been growing. "I used to hunt with my dad all the time, learned how to track things pretty well. Took some time, but I was eventually able to use it when it came to Grimm as well. For instance, these," he waved his hand over a part of the puddle near the edge, "are boot marks."

Blake narrowed her eyes where he was pointing and, after focusing for a moment, could indeed make out the rounded indent of a heel on the edge of the puddle. "It's a farm," she deadpanned. "Gerard and Gabriel probably walk over the ground everywhere."

"These prints are from combat boots," Jaune countered, standing up. "I've seen enough of them to know what they look like. On top of that, these particular prints belong to a woman."

Blake watched as he walked over to talk to the family once more before returning to join her and indicating they should return. Together, they made their way back towards her home, picking their way through the jungle back towards the guard outpost.

"You never mentioned you knew how to hunt," she said once they had broken the treeline and walked past the two guards, both of whom still watched Jaune warily.

"I grew up in a family of ten," Jaune replied with a chuckle. "How else were we supposed to eat? Granted, my dad did most of the hunting. I just followed along and tried not to mess up."

"I guess I never really thought about it," Blake admitted. "None of us knew a lot about anyone before Beacon." Her thoughts once more turned towards her partner, and the time she told Blake about what growing up had been like for her and Ruby. About how Weiss had admitted to the difficulties she had faced growing up under the constant threat of the Fang. Beyond that, she didn't really know anything about any of her friends from before they met during initiation.

"I can only imagine what Yang would've said if she knew you were the daughter of the leader of Menagerie," Jaune said, grinning.

"Yang finds enough ammunition to tease us with on her own," Blake replied feeling herself smile slightly before her mood fell. "Of course, I doubt she'll even want to face me now."

"Why is that?" Jaune asked.

Blake looked up into his eyes, and shrunk away from the genuine conern shining within them, despite wanting nothing more than to simply reach out and accept the comfort she knew Jaune would be more than willing to provide. "Nothing," she said, forcing herself away. "We should just get -"

She was interrupted by a grunt and a yelp, followed by the sound of something crashing to the ground and whirled around to find Jaune tangled in a heap with a faunus boy with a single, small bat wing protruding from his back. He had a large wicker basket covering his head, and produce was strune all around them, making Blake wish she could simply melt into the ground as people stopped and turned to watch.

"I'm so sorry!" Jaune exclaimed as he hurried to extricate himself from the boy, helping him to his feet before crouching down and gathering the various fruits and vegetables he had dropped when they crashed into each other. As he did so, Blake noticed the arm band the boy wore on his exposed bicep, displaying the familar emblem of the Fang and felt herself tensing as she prepared for what could quickly escalate into a violent situation. "I really should be more aware of my surroundings. You're not hurt are you?" He stood up and handed the basket to the boy, looking him up and down for injury, pausing briefly on his armband before focusing instead on the small drop of blood oozing from a scrape on his knee.

"What are you doing?" The boy demanded and the entire crowd tensed as Jaune crouched down and reached for her knee.

"You hurt yourself," Jaune said simply, placing his hand over her knee before a small flash of white erupted between his palm and her leg. When he removed his hand, Blake's eyes widened as he revealed the boy's knee to be completely healed, with no evidence of the injury whatsoever. Gasps filled the crowd as the Jaune stood up and the boy turned around, revealing to Blake that a second wing had also grown out of his back, tearing a hole in his shirt.

"W-why would you do that?" The boy stuttered.

"Because you hurt yourself," Jaune replied, tilting his head like a confused puppy before suddenly looking terrified. "W-was that offensive or something? I'm sorry, I should have asked permission before just grabbing your leg like that, that was super rude of me to do."

"Jason!" A woman shouted from within the crowd, pushing her way to the front. "Oliver, honey, are you there?!" The woman had bat wings protruding from her back similar to her son's, only hers were much larger and wrapped around the boy as he ran to hug her legs.

"Mom! Look, look! My wing grew back!" Blake watched as the boy described, in detail, every event leading up to Jaune healing him, and had to stifle a laugh as the only human in the crowd became increasingly red in the face as he was forced into the center of attention.

"Is what my son said true?" The woman asked. "You restored his wings?"

"Yeah, sorry," Jaune chuckled. "I saw that he had scraped his knee, and went to heal that, but then I noticed that he was feeling pain around his back, so I went to heal that and ended up going a little overboard. I don't really have any money, but I'm sure I can work off getting him a new shirt, or -"

He was cut off when the woman leaned forward and wrapped her arms around him, squeezing him tightly.

"Thank you," she muttered, her White Fang armband clearly visible as she held him close. "I never thought my son would be able to have full use of his wings again."

"It was my pleasure," Jaune said softly, returning the embrace before pulling away and crouching in front of the boy. "When you first try flying, make sure to have a running start, and to begin with gliding."

The boy nodded his head, and Blake watched as Jaune smiled at him and ruffled his hair before straightening up and returning to her side, his cheeks still pink from embarassment. Endless questions zoomed through her mind as the crowd slowly dispersed and the two of them continued to walk back towards her home. How did Jaune manage to heal the boy's injuries? Was that his semblance? When did he acquire it? How did it work? If his semblance could regrow entire limbs, what else could it do?

"I want to do a bit more asking around concerning the Grimm attack," Jaune declared interrupting her thoughts. "Why don't I meet you at your house later?"

"Sure," Blake replied quietly, shocked at being so handily dismissed. "See you then." Jaune nodded, threw the hood of his ragged brown cloak over his head, and strolled off into the crowd. Blake watched him vanish between the people bustling back and forth, her mind swimming with questions to which she could find not a single answer. Jaune had been nothing more than a loveable goofball back at Beacon, but now... there was something about him that scratched at the back of her mind, and that made her insides curl up uncomfortably. The last time someone had made her this curious, he wound up cutting the arm off of Blake's best friend.

**A/N: So, not a ton of action but hopefully this is starting to give an idea of where Jaune and Blake both are mentally. As I'm writing this I haven't seen Volume 6 yet, having only read a bit on the wiki for context purposes, but I will let you know that I'm going with my own original idea for what Jaune was doing before Beacon, and hopefully use it to bolster certain aspects of his character. Anyway, thanks for reading and reviewing, I hope you guys liked it, and I'll see you next time!**


	4. Chapter 4

Jaune spent the rest of the day wandering around Kuo Kuana, speaking with the locals. After his little stunt with the bat-boy earlier, word quickly spread around of the human that healed him and he found many of the suspicious or fearful glares he had been receiving since disembarking from the boat the day before. This made investigating the attack on Gerard and Gabriel's farm go much smoother as people started to believe he was a genuine Huntsman that Blake's father had hired, and, as he normally did when that particular assumption was made about him, he saw no reason to actively try and dissuade them if it was making things easier.

"It's nice to see the old jungle cat finally managed to rustle up some help with those damn things," a middle-aged woman said as Jaune helped her carry her groceries, her webbed fingers making it slightly harder to carry her things. "And a human! One who's not even fazed by our kind either!"

"You mean that attack wasn't the first?" Jaune asked, deciding to avoid the discussion of politics and racism as much as he could.

"Hah! You kidding?" The woman laughed as they arrived at the small hut she called home. "This ain't like one of those little settlements in the Kingdoms where a Beowulf will eat a farmer maybe once a month, and a Huntsman will be dispatched to take care of it within the week. We've had to take care of ourselves pretty much since we landed here. It's why so many people join the Fang."

"So, the White Fang helps you guys deal with the Grimm?" Jaune concluded.

The woman nodded. "That they do. If just one member of your family's with 'em, you can be pretty much guaranteed safety from the Grimm."

"What about the city guards," Jaune asked. "Surely they help?"

"Do you ask the police in the kingdoms to go on missions with you?" The woman countered. "Besides, the guards're usually too busy with problems inside the city."

"What do you mean?"

"Too many mouths, not enough to eat," she explained. "That makes people desperate, which in turn makes 'em stupid. Same thing in pretty much every other village on the island. It was worse before Ghira became Chief, he's done a lot for us, but we're all lucky the Fang looks after its own. People get training against the Grimm, food in their bellies, and can fight for our rights."

"Sounds like a pretty good deal," Jaune muttered as the woman opened her doors.

"That it is," she replied, turning to accept her groceries from him. "And, if the kindness you've shown me is anything to go by, then the fight is going well. Goodbye, Huntsman, and good luck with tracking your prey."

Jaune's stomach twisted in discomfort, but he held his tongue as he smiled to the woman and bid her farewell before turning back towards the main road. That's the third person to mention the White Fang helping with the Grimm attacks, he thought to himself. But Gerard was supposedly a member, so where were they? He had no conclusive evidence that the White Fang were at all involved with the destruction of the farm just outside of the city, but he couldn't stop his instincts from warning him that there was more to this than there seemed.

"You have the instincts of a warrior. Always trust them, for they are your souls way of telling you what your senses cannot," a familiar voice chimed in the back of his memory.

Nodding his head resolutely, Jaune closed his eyes and focussed on his aura. When he had first had it unlocked, his aura had seemed like such a foreign concept to him. All he knew was that it was some sort of energy that protected him from harm and kept the Grimm from tearing him to shreds. Even when he had first set out on his own, he had been woefully ignorant. However, after a year of careful on-and-off instruction, and a lot of experimenting on his own, the power derived from his soul was a familiar, comforting presence that he could grasp and channel with ease.

Taking a deep breath, Jaune gathered his aura before releasing it in a pulse around him, allowing the energy to travel in every direction as it swept through his surroundings, giving him an extraordinarily detailed view of everything and, more importantly, everyone around him. It had taken him months to be able to properly understand the information that was fed back to him as his aura made contact with his surroundings, and, while he was nowhere near as skilled as a real Huntsman or Huntress would be with the technique, he was proud of the distance his aura could cover due simply to its vast quantity.

Looks like my shadow still isn't back, Jaune thought to himself as he set off once more towards the Belladonna mansion. He had detected someone following him and Blake that morning before they went to visit the farm, and again when they returned to town, but the last few times he had pulsed his aura the mysterious follower was nowhere to be found. He wished he could dismiss it as little more than an overly cautious faunus following him to make sure he was behaving, but, once again, it just didn't sit right with him.

A grumbling from his stomach interrupted his thoughts just as he walked through the massive doors of the mansion. Patting his gut and lamenting his lost wallet, he began to make his way back to the room Blake's parents were letting him stay in to grab the banged up. old fishing rod he carried with him for times such as these. He had just thrown the rod over his shoulder and exited the room when he nearly ran into Blake's mother as she walked down the hall.

"Oh! Hello there, Jaune!"

"Hey, Mrs. Belladonna," Jaune returned, waving awkwardly.

"Please, call me Kali! What have you got there?" She asked, nodding towards his rod.

"Oh, this? I still don't have any money, so I was going to go find a nice river or something and see if I can't catch myself some dinner."

"Nonsense!" Kali exclaimed, turning him around on the spot. "You didn't think that we would let one of our guests go hungry, now did you?"

"I... Uh..."

"Now you put that thing away before you poke your eye out and follow me. You'll eat with us in the dining room."

"Oh, no! I couldn't!" Jaune tried his best to escape the woman, but her grip was like iron as she yanked the fishing rod out of his hand and tossed it into his room, only for it to sail right out the window.

"I insist!" She persisted, halfway dragging him through the halls as Jaune tried desperately to keep up with the deceptively strong woman while throwing longing glances back towards where his trusty rod had just been defenestrated. With less reluctance than his manners should have dictated due to his raging innards, Jaune followed Kali into the same room where he and Blake had shared tea with her and Ghira the day before, the other two having already seated themselves on the floor while awkardly looking anywhere but at each other until Kali joined them opposite her husband, and Jaune sat down across from Blake, crossing his legs.

"Ah! Jaune!" Ghira exclaimed in what Jaune could have sworn was relief. "Come, join us!"

Servants came out and placed trays of food before them, and Jaune had to stop himself from drooling as he stared at the steaming plate of rice and tuna before him. He looked around for his knife and fork, but was dismayed to find them missing from the table until he noticed a thin pair of wooden sticks laying next to his cup.

"Thank you for the meal, sir," Jaune said, grabbing the sticks and watching Blake take a bite to see how he was supposed to use them to eat his food. "It smells delicious."

"You're quite welcome, young man," Ghira replied. "So, tell me, how goes your investigation?"

"It's uh... still ongoing," Jaune replied, trying hard to pick up a chunk of rice, only for his sticks to slip and the food to fall onto his plate. "Blake helped me examine the farm for any tracks that might tell me what exactly it was that attacked. It's unlikely to attack in the same place or so soon, so until I can identify what type it is and how best to track it, I plan on getting to know the city, try and figure out where it's most likely to go for."

"Gently, Jaune," Kali instructed as Jaune once more tried to take a mouthful of food, his face reddening in embarrassment before turning to her daughter. "I had no idea they taught you how to identify Grimm by the mess they leave behind at Beacon."

"They didn't," Blake replied, smirking as Jaune just barely missed his mouth on his most recent attempt. "Jaune was the one who followed the tracks, I just helped him get past the guards."

"I am sorry for their behaviour," Ghira said. "Most people living on Menagerie are refugees from a life that was made more difficult at the hands of oppressive humans. Unfortunately the wariness they have developped as a result of such has made some of them just as prejudiced as the humans that scorned them."

"Oh, there's no need to apologize," Jaune replied, grinning as he finally managed to take a bite. "I've seen how terribly faunus are treated more than enough to understand where they're coming from."

"That's quite admirable of you, Jaune," Kali said, smiling softly.

"My sisters and I even attended a few of the White Fang rallies when they came to town," Jaune continued, his confidence somewhat bolstered as he managed to slowly sate his hunger.

"Which town is that?" Ghira asked.

"Ansel."

"That's quite far," Kali noted. "You're family must be worried sick."

"They are," Jaune replied, smiling as he thought of his sisters. "But I try to stay in contact as often as I can. Helps them know I haven't been swallowed whole by a Beowulf."

An awkward silence fell over the table as Blake's ears drooped over her head and she shot furtive glances at her parents before returning to staring at her food. Jaune realised he must have touched a sore spot there and hurried to correct his mistake.

"So, Ghira! How did you come to lead Kuo Kuana?"

"Actually, Dad's the chieftain for all of Menagerie," Blake informed him making Jaune's eye widen as he turned to the mountain-like man.

"There's not really much to tell," Ghira admitted modestly. "When it became clear that the White Fang was going in a direction I did not approve of, I chose to step down rather than incite any sort of infighting. It didn't take long, however, for the people of Menagerie to look to me for guidance as well, so I accepted the role of chieftain."

"You were the leader of the White Fang?" Jaune asked, his eyes wide. No wonder those two creeps treated him with such respect yesterday.

"I was," Ghira said. "Unfortunately, my ideas of a peaceful revolution soon lost traction as violence towards the faunus continued to go on, and I eventually chose to abdicate. I did not approve of what it was becoming, and it after what you told us yesterday, it seems that my instincts were right."

The rest of dinner was filled with light-hearted conversation that Jaune was more than thankful for after the minefield he had just navigated through, and Jaune went to bed that night with the first genuine smile on his face in a long time.

*(OoO)*

It took four days for the Grimm to make a reappearance.

In an effort to better understand him (and avoid any more uncomfortable moments with her parents), Blake had taken to following Jaune as he conducted his investigation in and around Kuo Kuana. She watched as he helped out wherever he could around the city, sometimes simply helping an older woman with her groceries, sometimes making use of his strange semblance to heal whatever injuries were brought to him. Regardless of what he did, he always wore the same pleasant, inviting smile on his face.

This only raised even more questions, however, as Blake wondered why he was spending all this time helping out in and around the city when he had clearly shown the ability to track the Grimm by the prints it left alone. On top of that, she wondered why he was going to such great lengths to befriend people when he stood no chance of changing the general outlook towards humans on Menagerie. At best, he was treated like the exception to the rule. At worst, he was regarded with even more suspicion as people wondered what his angle was. Either way, it only proved to make her more curious as she followed him day in and day out.

So, having taken up her daily ritual of watching him from the shadows, Blake was perfectly position to see him notice the shifting trees on the other side of the farmland, and how he stiffened before ordering Gerard and Gabriel inside along with their children as he climbed down from the roof and started to walk towards the treeline while she followed from a distance until her eyes widened as a bellowing roar filled the air and a Beringel the size of a large truck burst through the trees.

She began sprinting towards Jaune, but froze halfway when he she noticed him throw off his brown cloak, revealing the tattered armor underneath. Instead of the breastplate and guards he used to wear, Jaune now wore a thick leather jacket over his signature hoodie with plates, chain, and studs attached in various sections. His left shoulder was equipped with a large plate that connected to one covering his left pectoral and raised over his neck before extending down the side of his back, protecting his heart from both sides. Attached to the plate on his back a blade about half the length of the one she remembered him using in Beacon, its grip concealed by a group of compressed plates at the top of the sheath. Reaching over his shoulder, Jaune drew the blade, and Blake watched as he drew the blade, and realised it wasn't the same one he used to wield at all as it extended to nearly four feet in length. Unlike the white steel of his old blade, this one had a silvery finish to it. Its edges were segmented to accomodate its shifting length, as well as making his stabs more damaging, and as Jaune twirled it in his hand, Blake could already tell that its balance was different from its predecessor.

The Beringel howled angrily as it watched Gerard usher his children into the cellar beneath his home and Blake felt a surge of fear as she suddenly realised she didn't have her weapon with her. This seemed to attract the Grimm's attention, as it sniffed the air, picking up on the negativity she was unwillingly emmitting and started turning towards her before freezing in its tracks as Jaune took another step forward. Something in the air changed then, and the Beringel suddenly zeroed in on him as he slowly continued to walk towards it, his expression neutral.

Just like with the Feilong on the boat, Blake watched in awe as Jaune faced down a massive Grimm with no trace of emotion other than determination and couldn't help but wonder at the changes that he had gone through since she last saw him at Beacon. The Beringel snarled and charged towards Jaune, leaping through the air as it approached and Blake felt her heart leap into her throat as the three ton Grimm came crashing down fist first towards Jaune.

Rather than jump away, Jaune waited until the last moment before swiftly taking a step towards the Beringel just as it slammed into the ground, spewing mud and debris everywhere. While inside the beast's guard, Jaune raised his blade and plunged it underneath one of its massive, tree-sized arms before pulling it out as the Beringel reared back in pain, hollering loud enough to make Blake's feline ears throb with pain. Raising both its fists, the Beringel tried once more to crush Jaune into paste and brought them both down on his head, only for him to twirl even farther through its guard, spinning around its back and burying his blade in the crook of its opposite thigh as he went.

The Beringel whirled around as Jaune ripped his blade from its hip and released an inhuman scream as it pursued him relentlessly, tearing up mud and smashing into trees as he danced away from its swipes. Blake watched as they moved closer and closer to the treeline and wondered why Jaune wasn't making any move to attack again as the Beringel thrashed and raged, always just missing him. It wasn't until they were nearly back in the jungle that Blake noticed how much slower the Grimm was moving, its attacks becoming more sluggish as they caused less and less damage upon impact before eventually it stopped, reaching up to grab its head as it head and leaning against a nearby tree. There was a loud thud as the Grimm slumped to the ground before Jaune stepped forward once more, raisning his sword once more and looking down at the large ape-like beast that glared at him and growled in impotent rage. The Beringel opened its mouth, revealing long fangs as it roared one last time before it was cut off as Jaune swung and a sound more reminiscent of a birdcall than a blade rang through the air, high and clear, as the head of the beast was separated from its shoulders.

Once more, Blake found herself brimming with questions as she watched Jaune swing his sword once more through the air, clearing it completely of any residual blood on the blade before it collapsed in on itself, shrinking as he returned it to its sheath on his back. Deciding she had much to think about, Blake took the opportunity to retreat back into the jungle and return home before she would have to explain herself to Jaune and risk further embarrassment.

Clearly there was much more than Jaune Arc than any of them could have guessed, and she was determined to unravel that mystery, one way or another.

**A/N: So obvious call out to One Good Turn Deserves Another for the inspiration behind this little fight. I wanted to show that, despite definitely having gotten stronger over the past year, Jaune's biggest improvement is his ability to fight smart, not hard, and the scene with the massive Nevermore in OGTDA was a good way of demonstrating it as it wasn't a death by a thousand cuts, or a battle of sheer strength, but him using his know-how to take down the Beringel with minimal effort. I'm also happy to see you guys appreciate Sherlock!Jaune. Volume 4 opens with him claiming to be the strategist, and I'm trying to write him with a slightly more analytical mind. That being said, he is still somewhat socially awkward when he's nervous, as when he chastised himself as racist when he saw Kali and noted how similar she was to Blake. **

**Anyway, I hope you guys liked this, and thank you for reading and reviewing. I'll see you around next time!**


	5. Chapter 5

"Jaune," Ghira said as he opened the door to his office. "Please, come in."

"Thank you, sir," Jaune replied, following the titanic man inside. "Sorry for disturbing you so late at night."

"Nonsense," Ghira replied waving away Jaune's apology. "After the report I read about how you handled that Beringel attack last week, I'm more than happy to speak with you. Now, what can I do for you?"

"I was wondering if you had heard about Gerard, one of the farmers, joining back up with the White Fang," Jaune said, taking a seat opposite Ghira at his desk.

"I had. I feel sorry for his family, as he's getting up there in age, and isn't as quick as he used to be." Ghira sighed and shrugged his shoulders. "But, I guess some people just can't stay away from the fight for equality no matter how hard they try. Why do you ask?"

"Just making conversation before getting to the real reason for my visit," Jaune lied. "Despite having fought off the Beringel, the fact that the same place was attacked twice in such a small timeframe suggests that there's most likely some sort of larger group of Grimm somewhere nearby."

"That's rather disturbing news," Ghira replied solemnly. "I take it, then, you are here to see if I will hire you to investigate this possibility?"

"I'll end up investigating regadless," Jaune declared. "I have a hard time just sitting by and letting people get hurt. That being said, not having to worry about funds while I do so would definitely make my life easier, that's for sure."

"Say no more, Jaune," Ghira announced, holding up his hand. "You've already proven yourself to be a rather upstanding young man, I see no harm in paying you to do your job. Shall I send the bulk of the pay back to your hometown like I did last time?"

Jaune nodded, scratching the back of his neck. "If it's not too much trouble, yeah, I'd appreciate that. I'd also like to see any records you have detailing other Grimm attacks here and in other places around Menagerie."

"Certainly," Ghira answered, despite his thick brow lowering in confusion. "However, I must ask why you would want to see them."

"I have a theory I'm working on," Jaune explained. "But I need more information about other Grimm attacks to see if it holds up."

"Very well, I will make sure you have access to everything you need." Ghira paused, his expression turning pensive. "Jaune, if you don't mind, I'd like your opinion on something."

"Uh, sure," Jaune replied. "What do you want to know?"

"What are your thoughts on what Corsac and Fennec said about the attack on Beacon being orchestrated by a rogue splinter group of the White Fang?" Ghira asked.

Jaune sighed and leaned back in his seat. "I think that as a human speaking to the former leader of the White Fang we're both too far and too close to the situation respectively for my opinion to do more than have me thrown out of your home at best, and lynched at worst were I to express it either way."

"So you don't believe it was caused by a splinter group?" Ghira pressed.

"I've never met the current leader of the White Fang, so I wouldn't know," Jaune replied. "The only conclusions I can draw are from observations I made while here and while dealing with them in Vale."

"And why do you believe that expressing any of these conclusions you've come to would land you in trouble?"

"Because I'm followed almost everywhere I go, and there are members of your personal guard that I'm fairly sure are part of the Fang," Jaune explained, watching as Ghira stiffened. "But I take it you didn't know this, did you?"

"I did not," Ghira replied. "What brought you to this conclusion?"

"I've been all over Kuo Kuana," Jaune elaborated. "Talking with people, helping out here and there, and, most importantly, watching. As biggoted as it sounds, the variety of faunus that live here make it a lot easier to keep an eye on someone in a crowd. I've seen where a lot of your guards go when they're off work, and watched as people I've confirmed are part of the Fang go there too."

"That is... most troubling," Ghira muttered to himself.

Jaune shrugged and stood up from his seat. "Well, thank you for the permission," he announced slightly louder than usual. "If it's alright with you, I think that I'll just turn in for the night." Ghira nodded and Jaune made his way out of his office towards the guest room he was staying in.

Once there, he did his nightly rituals then opened his scroll to find a new message and grinned. With the CCT network offline, sending messages even within the kingdoms was difficult at best. Thankfully, one of his sisters had managed to set him up with a program that would reliably send messages through means he was nowhere near smart enough to understand, but it took a long time just to send one, which is why he always did so, and had the recipient forward what he wanted to say to everyone else he wanted to interact with.

Thank you for the update on where you are. Will pass along information and messages to desired recipients.

Stay safe.

Attached to the message was a digital book entitled Grimm of Distant Lands: A Complete Bestiary of Grimm Found in Various Exotic Locations Around Remnant. Jaune smiled as he read the title. He knew that he had a hard time learning from just reading rather than doing, but he wasn't about to turn down any opportunity to increase his chances of survival while working in Menagerie. Opening the disappointingly short book, Jaune settled into his bed and began reading, trying his best to imprint everything he read into his mind and associate it with observations he made in the field before eventually falling asleep.

*(OoO)*

"You know, Blake, it's been nearly a month since we got here," Jaune called out, startling Blake from her hiding spot on the roof overlooking the guest room's balcony where she had been watching him train himself. "If you want to hang out, you could just say so."

Cheeks flushing with shame, Blake quietly dropped to wooden floor of the balcony and avoided his gaze as she looked away. "Sorry," she muttered.

Jaune shrugged and waved her off. "Don't worry about it. It's your house, you've more of a right to be running around on its roof than I do."

Blake smirked at his joked and watched as he returned to practicing with his sword. Despite having spent enough time watching him for even her to start finding it somewhat creepy, Blake was no closer to unraveling any of the many questions she had concering Jaune. Ever since the Beringel attack, he was spending more and more time in either his room or her father's office. This only made Blake more curious, as when her mother had asked him during dinner one night, Jaune had merely replied that he was doing some research into the Grimm living in the area. This added more fuel to her inquisitive fire, as Blake could distinctly remember Jaune having to be dragged to the library on more than one occasion, something that clashed with what she was seeing now.

"What happened to your old weapon?" She asked after realising that Jaune wasn't going to acknowledge her presence as he trained himself against imaginary foes.

"Was never really mine to start with," Jaune grunted, ducking an invisible attacker before stabbing the air and hopping back a step. "Put it back where it belonged."

"And where is that?"

"Where I found it."

"What have you been doing in your room all this time?"

"Reading."

"Really?"

"Really. You should try it sometime, I think you'd really enjoy it."

"What were you reading?"

"Why do you ask?"

"I'm just trying to make conversation."

Jaune snorted. "Sure, you are."

"You were never this frustratingly obtuse back at Beacon," Blake snarked, her irritation growing as Jaune seemed completely unfazed.

"You were," he replied.

"I had secrets worth keeping," Blake countered. "I couldn't risk people finding out."

Jaune snorted and slashed his blade through the air, a sharp whistling filling the air. "And that makes you special?"

"You don't know anything about me!" Blake hissed, her anger rising even further.

"I know that you used to be part of the White Fang," Jaune replied, his voice steady as he continued his drills. "I know that you were probably a member from the start, given your dad's former role as High Leader. I know that some of the tension between you and your parents stems from you having been away for a long time with minimal contact, which means the odds are in favour of you staying with the Fang when they started to become more radicalized. I'm willing to guess that's where you got your combat training, and that you left them to join Beacon. I know that you hid the fact that you're a Faunus while at school, but eventually told your team. I know that you four girls cared more for each other than anything, and I know that you hurt all of them by coming here without saying anything."

"Do you think I like the idea of leaving them all behind?" Blake shouted. "Because I don't! I don't like waking up everyday to the image of Yang lying on the ground, her arm severed because of me! Everywhere I go, people I care about get hurt! Why do you think I was so angry to see you on that boat!" At this point, the first vestiges of icy panic had begun creeping through her veins, and Blake responded in the only way she could think of by going on the offence. "And I don't see you doing any different! You were on that boat with me! You're just as much a coward as I am! No, you're more of a coward! You're just ashamed of having never been good enough in a fight. You don't have to live with the pain and guilt I do knowing that your best friend probably hates you because she lost her arm to your ex-boyfriend!"

"No," Jaune replied quietly, as a tense, oppressive feeling filled the air, and Blake suddenly felt like gravity was working overtime to bring her to her knees. "I don't, because my best friend is dead." Blake's eyes widened and she immediately wished she could take back what she had said as she watched Jaune reach down to his waist, where a strip of red fabric was tied to his belt, and run his fingers over it.

"I had to watch her go off and fight someone who had just killed one of the greatest warriors in the world while I flew away because she knew that I couldn't handle what we were up against. I had to look her parents in the eye after they had been told that their daughter - the girl they were so proud of, the girl they were so sure after everything she had already accomplished would go on to be one of the greatest Huntresses ever, the girl they couldm't even bury because she had been reduced to nothing more than ash on the breeze... I had to look at them and tell them that her leader, her partner, couldn't even be there with her in her last moments. That she died alone on a rooftop, fighting an impossible fight because I was too weak. Afterwards, I went home, spent a few weeks with my family before deciding that I wouldn't let her sacrifice be in vain. I started going from town to town, helping protect people caught up in the chaos. I let Ren and Nora know what I was doing, and they respected my wish when I said had to do it alone. Even now I send messages to them as well as my family and even the other members of your team to let them know how I'm doing, because I know that they would be with me in a heartbeat if I asked them to, and the least - the very least - I can do in return is help ease some of their worries."

"Jaune," Blake muttered as she watched the darkness behind his eyes slowly give way to fire. "I didn't know..."

Jaune snorted, turning to glare at her as he took a step forward, and Blake felt the first hints of something she would never have associated with the annoying goofball she thought she knew: fear. She was suddenly very aware of how much larger and more imposing he was than her as he towered over her, his blue eyes glowing with a hidden power.

"How could you?" He asked quietly. "As soon as everyone was safe, you took off without a word. You were so concerned with your own pain, that you never even considered the pain you were causing others. You think you have some sort of monopoly on suffering, and because of that, no one can understand you or what you've been through, but I have news for you Blake: you aren't as special as you think. You think you're the only one who understands the suffering faunus go through everyday? Look around at the people on this island! Your own father was a leader of the White Fang! Three of my sisters are faunus, you don't think I saw how they were treated like second-class citizens everyday? You don't think I was beaten up in the street at least four times a week having to stand up for them because they were too scared to stand up for themselves? You think that you're the only person who has made mistakes, or done things they're not proud of? Every other person in this city has had to break some sort of law to survive, and those that aren't have to join a group of terrorists who brainwash them into thinking they're fighting for justice! We both might be cowards," Jaune snarled, his aura flaring and covering him in an angry miasma of silvery light, "but you're selfish, Blake."

Without another word, Jaune turned on the spot and simply leapt over the balcony, sword in hand before marching right into the jungle surrounding the mansion, ignoring the guards calling after him as he went by.

"Well, that certainly could have gone better." Blake jumped in fright as she whirled around and found her father standing in the doorway of the balcony.

"Dad!" She yelped. "What are you doing here?!"

"I came to speak to Jaune about the work he's doing when I noticed you were spying on him again," Ghira replied, his deep voice rumbling. "It was hard not to overhear when you both started shouting."

"He's right," Blake muttered, her eyes stinging. "I am selfish. How can you not hate me after everything I've done?"

"Your mother and I could never hate you, Blake," her father's voice was and Blake found she couldn't look him in the eye as her own started to sting.

"But I was so mean! I shouted at you and fought with you!" A sob ripped its way through her throat, and Blake squeezed her eyes shut. "I called you cowards and abandoned you! I abandoned them! I'm the real coward."

"You never abandoned us, Blake," Ghira replied, walking over and wrapping his massive arms around her. Blake couldn't help herself as another sob broke free and she buried herself in the familar warmth and protection of her father's embrace, her tears falling freely. "You've always done what you think is right, and your mother and I couldn't be more proud of you for that."

"Really?" Blake asked, looking up into her father's golden eyes.

"Really," Ghira replied, nodding. "Your mother and I have always only ever been concerned for your safety." He sighed and tightened his grip on her as she buried her face back in his chest.

"I'm sorry," she sobbed.

"I know you are, sweetheart. I know you are."

The two of them stood there for an indeterminable amount of time as Blake calmed down and the guilt of what she had said to Jaune started to set in. "I really hurt Jaune," she mumbled as her father's large hand ran through her hair.

"Yes, you did," he agreed. "But that doesn't mean you can't work to fix what you've done."

"How?" She asked desperately. "I through the death of his partner in his face and acted like it didn't matter. How could he possibly forgive me for that?"

"I look at that young man, and I see a lot of things," Ghira said. "I see determination, and compassion. I see strength and intelligence. I see hope and I see pain. But do you want to know what I see the most of when I look at him?" Blake nodded and pressed herself closer to him. "I see loneliness. The same loneliness I see when I look at you."

"What do you mean?" Blake asked looking up into her father's eyes.

"I mean, maybe instead of spying on him like he's some sort of target for a mission, you could try to actually be the friend he claims you two to be," Ghira explained. "Then you might find that neither of you were who the other thought you to be."

Blake contemplated Ghira's words long after she had returned to her room and settled herself in bed. Could she really be Jaune's friend? Could she stop trying to figure out what had turned him from the boy in school into the man she met on that boat and just be there for him? Could it really be that easy?

Blake shook her head, chastising herself. Of course it wouldn't be easy, she was the least friendly person she knew after Weiss. But that didn't mean she couldn't try.

**A/N: That was not an easy chapter to write. However, I think it was something that needed to happen for the both of them to start actually opening up to one another, considering what they've both been through and who they are. Hopefully the revelation that Jaune somehow has sisters who are faunus doesn't come too far out of left field for the observant readers, but I promise it will make sense eventually as I slowly delve into his backstory and what he's been doing since the Fall of Beacon.**

**Lastly, thanks once again for reading and reviewing. Nothing motivates me more to keep writing than reading what you all have to say about my story. See you guys next time!**


	6. Chapter 6

It took nearly a week for Jaune to return from the jungle where he had run off after their argument. Blake had begun to fear that he had left Menagerie completely when her father told her of reports he had received concerning a young man hacking down Grimm in the jungle. In the end, he was the one who ended up finding her as she tried to relax in the library of her house.

Returning to this sanctuary from her past had been one of Blake's favourite parts about coming home. Long before any of her problems involving the White Fang, this had been the place where her mother would read to her every night, nurturing her passion for literature. Just sitting in the familiar, old leather chairs and breathing in the scent of wood and old paper was enough to make her relax as memories from a happier time in her life greeted her.

It was for this reason that her guard was down enough to make her jump when Jaune suddenly dropped into the chair across from her, his gaze fixed on the smoldering embers behind the wrought iron grates of the hearth. Considering the fact that she hadn't been able to properly sneak up on him since they had arrived in Menagerie, the fact that Jaune, of all people, had managed to approach her undetected annoyed Blake greatly, especially after having vanished for so long. She opened her mouth to snap at him when she noticed the distant look in his eye, and decided to drop it and wait for him to speak first.

It took several minutes, but eventually Jaune closed his eyes and sighed, leaning forward and resting his forearms on his knees as loose strands of his blonde hair fell from his wolf tail to hang over his brow. "My family has produced Huntsmen for generations," he said quietly. "Further back than even the four schools themselves, the Arc family has been the center of countless tales and constantly labeled heroes. Problem with being a hero, though, is that they rarely get to die of old age surrounded by loved ones. Generations of fighting in the name of glory and protecting the innocent cut our family tree down until there was no one left but my mom and a sword and shield older than anyone can remember. Problem is, there's not a ton of opportunity for a lone girl on the streets to train herself to be a hero. She became angry at the idea of heroes, but wasn't willing to part with the only thing she had left of her parents, so, to feed herself, she sold the only other thing a girl in her situation could. Eventually, she made enough money to put a roof over her head, but her... clients, weren't always the most considerate when it came to the consequences of their actions." He paused and took a deep breath while Blake's eyes widened somewhat as she started to understand what he was saying.

"She was fifteen when she had my oldest sister. By that time, she propbably was terrified of what she was going to do with another mouth that needed feeding, but when Saphron was born, Mom knew that she was going to make sure that little girl had the best life possible, far away from the death and sadness that everyone seems to forget when they talk about heroes. She started working more and more to make sure Saph didn't have to follow in her footsteps or those of her parents, and when Verte was born, her resolve strengthened even further. But, it was hard on her, and the nine of us had to look after each other. It got a little easier when she managed to get a job at a butcher shop and fell in love with a hunter. We didn't have much, but we made it work. Eventually, though, those years took their toll on Mom, and she got sick. She couldn't work anymore so my older sisters all went and found jobs. I didn't though. I was already well known for messing up pretty much every job I had, so no one in Ansel would hire me. Instead, one night, I ran away, stealing the one thing that she could never have parted with, and set out for Beacon with a set of forged transcripts in hand. I figured I would become a great Huntsmen like my ancestors and be able to take care of my family, or, at the very least, I could provide them with one less mouth to feed."

"Jaune," Blake whispered, reaching out to him when he raised his head and began talking once again.

"What happened at the Fall of Beacon," Jaune said harshly before deflating with an explosive sigh. "None of us came away from that unscathed. I can understand where you're coming from, the guilt that eats away at you everyday. The feeling that as long as you're around, the people you care about will always be in danger. I can even understand feeling like you're protecting them, I almost did the same. But, when you leave like that, all you do is hurt the people closest to you. It was selfish to believe that no one could understand what you were feeling, and that you knew best, I'm not sorry for saying that. I am sorry for how I said it, though. I shouldn't have used the my own pain to undermine yours."

"I needed it," Blake admitted. "I've been so wrapped up in the fact that Adam came to Beacon because of me, that I ignored everything else that happened to everyone else that was there."

"To be fair," Jaune said, a grin tugging at his lips. "He does sound like a jerk."

Blake smirked. "You have no idea."

The two of them burst into laughter, and Blake felt a weight she hadn't even known was there lift off her chest, leaving behind a lingering warmth that she couldn't remember feeling since coming out to her team as a faunus. Eventually, they calmed down, and Jaune's face took on a more serious expression once more. Looking at him in the dim firelight, Blake could once again see how he had changed physically in the year since she had seen him with the light scruff on his cheeks and neck and his sharper jawline, all signs of any lingering baby fat having melted away during his time presumably living in less than ideal conditions, making him look much older than he should.

"I've been looking into some of the other Grimm attacks that have taken place in the surrounding areas," he declared reaching into his pocket and pulling out his scroll.

"Did you figure out where they're coming from?" Blake asked.

"Not quite," Jaune admitted, typing on his scroll before handing it over to her. "But I have started to see a few patterns."

"Like what?" Blake asked as she accepted the device and looked down to see what he had typed.

We're being watched. Masked girl out the Eastern window. She frowned. It wasn't surprising that the Fang would have someone watching the only human on Menagerie, but the fact that whoever it was wore a mask set her on edge.

"Well, it's clear their coming from the deserts to the west," Jaune continued as Blake handed the scroll back to him where he began typing on it once more, handing it back to her once he was finished but not releasing her hand as she reached to grab it and leaning close to her to make it look like they were both reading the screen. I'm going to give your semblance a boost. Leave a shadow of us both and sneak up on her. Blake raised an eyebrow, she had never even tried to leave a shadow of another person behind, and even then, her own vanished within moments and the distance she moved herself was nowhere near enough to get the leg up on someone who was all the way outside the house. She looked from the screen to Jaune, trying to find a way to covertly relay these facts when she was suddenly caught in the endless blue of his eyes and she suddenly felt it.

It started like a soothing balm on her very soul originating from where they were touching until suddenly, Blake felt raw energy coursing through her veins. It felt like her aura was suddenly endless. Like things that would have normally left her drained were nothing more than a thought away. Her muscles demanded use, making her have to work suddenly focus this overwhelming energy flowing through her to doing as Jaune asked. When she did, though, she suddenly found them both standing at the base of a tree more than twenty feet from the walls of the house. Looking up, she found their spy still watching the distant window and leapt through the air with a loud crack of splitting stone, rocketing towards the voyeur with more speed than she could ever imagine and slamming into her, sending them both careening out of the tree.

Blake barely even felt it when the woman punched her in the jaw in an attempt to break free, nor did she when they slammed into a nearby trunk, the force of their impact splitting and downing it with a crash that immediately had alarms around Blake's home blaring. Blake and her opponent rolled across the ground, coming to a stop about ten feet from one another, and Blake stood up fixing her gaze on the woman just as the lights throughout the house came one, revealing a slim, tanned woman with long, brown hair tied back in a ponytail that curled in on itself at the end. The woman wore a larger Grimm mask than most White Fang members, which, along with the horns added to the top of the mask, indicated she was of a higher rank than others as well as resonating in Blake's memory.

"Illia?" She called out. The other woman stiffened before her skin changed colour, suddenly turning black as the night as she tried to escape into the shadows, all but confirming Blake's fear only to run into Jaune who came running behind them both and backhanded Illia, sending her tumbling back into the light and shattering her mask.

"Why are you watching her?" He demanded.

"You shouldn't have come back," Illia grunted, pushing herself to her feet. "Especially not with a human."

"Blake?" Blake's eyes widened at the sound of her mother's voice as she and father came running towards them. At the same moment, Illia pulled out what looked like a segmented rapier with a gun handle for a hilt and pointed it at Blake before turning and squeezing the trigger as her mother came around the corner, making the segments seperate with a bright yellow light between them as they launched themselves at Kali.

"MOM!" Blake screamed as she watched the blade move in slow motion towards her mother's shoulder. She closed her eyes and thus didn't see whatever caused the loud clang of metal striking metal, only opening them when she heard a grunt that did not come from her mother and finding Jaune, a massive shield covering most of his body as he stood unmoving in front of her parents, his cheek bleeding from where Illia's blade had grazed it after being deflected.

Rage the likes Blake had never felt before coursed through her as she turned back to her one-time friend who had the gall to attack her mother, and she cursed violently upon remembering that she was unarmed as Illia used the distraction to fade away into the dark foliage behind her.

"Mom!" She yelled, running to her mother and wrapping her arms around her as she made sure Kali was uninjured. "Are you okay?"

"I am," Kali mumbled into her hair before looking up behind Blake. "Thanks to your friend at least."

Blake turned around to look at Jaune who was staring at the section of jungle through which Illia had escaped and took a step forward only to hesitate when he spun around in place, a hard look on his face and stared her father in the eye.

"I can track her," he declared, seemingly unaware of the long cut dripping blood down the right side of his face. "But only if she thinks we lost her. Keep your men away from this area until tomorrow, I can't risk anything tampering with the trail when we're letting it cool like this."

"I can do that," Ghira replied, his arms not leaving their place around his wife's shoulders. "This was an attack on my family. You will have whatever you need to hunt down the animals behind it."

"In the meantime," Kali suggested, her voice soothing as she tried to calm both her husband and daughter. "Why don't you help Jaune with that cut, Blake? It looks rather painful."

Blake nodded, while Jaune collapsed his shield, which ran up a series of rails along the plates covering his arm before detaching sections that expanded into the guards over his neck, pectoral and back while the main piece continued to the center of his back, returning to its sheathed form where he put his shrunken sword as well. Reaching out, she grabbed his hand and pulled him away from her parents and back inside her home, the one place she was supposed to be safe towards her room where she kept some bandages.

"Are you okay?" Jaune asked once they had arrived and Blake shut the door.

Blake opened her mouth to answer, but instead found herself doing something she never would have thought to even be within the realm of possibility not too long ago. She threw herself forward and wrapped her arms around him, grateful for his immediate reaction as he returned the gesture and kept her grounded as she wrestled with the concept of nearly having lost her mother that night.

"Thank you," she mumbled, burying her face in his chest and taking deep breaths of the smell of earth and citrus and sea water. "Thank you."

**A/N: Weirdly enough, it wasn't until the end that I had trouble with this one. I wanted the focus for this one to be mostly about their reconciliation, so the action got cut short. Hopefully the promise of Knightshade fluff softens the disappointment. Also, before anyone asks, there was a reason why Jaune bled from that blow he deflected despite having a ton of aura, it will be addressed in the next chapter. Anyway, I hope you guys liked this one and thanks again for reading and reviewing. See you next time!**


	7. Chapter 7

Jaune's face twitched as Blake wiped at the cut on his cheek. The cut had gone deeper than expected, and he had spent the last fifteen minutes sitting in the library staring at Blake's exposed middrift as she cleaned and dressed it.

"Thanks," he muttered, mentally reciting as much of Professor Port's classes as he remembered while she rubbed a cream over the wound to stave off infection.

Blake was silent for several moments as she continued to wipe at his cheek. Jaune was fairly confident that the wound was clean now that the bleeding had stopped, but decided to stay quiet as her mind was clearly elsewhere.

Eventually, they were interrupted by a knock at the door before Blake's parents stepped inside, startling her out of whatever thoughts she had been caught up in.

"How is he?" Kali asked, her hands clasped together in front of her in worry.

"I'm fine Mrs. Belladonna," Jaune replied, leaning around her daughter to smile at the woman. "It was just a scratch."

"A scratch that nearly went down to your bone," Blake countered. "Why didn't you try to even block her attack in the first place?" Jaune could almost taste the bitterness in her tone.

"The weapon was glowing," Jaune replied. "I didn't have time to figure out what kind of Dust was powering it, so I had to choose between flaring my aura and risking the blade bouncing off me and hitting one of your parents, or taking it and reducing whatever speed it had left so it wouldn't go any farther."

"That's very noble of you, Jaune," Ghira said. "Not to mention some very quick thinking on your part. You have my thanks, I don't know what I would have done if Kali had been injured."

"Honestly," Kali griped. "I'm not an invalid." Her expression softened however as she turned back to Jaune. "But that doesn't diminish how grateful I am."

"Like I said," Jaune repeated. "It's just a scratch."

"In that case, I find myself wondering why you don't use your aura to heal it," Ghira commented, causing Jaune to avert his eyes in discomfort.

"Yeah, I only really like to use my aura when I really need it. Helps me save it in case of emergencies, as well as teaching me to be more careful."

"I see. Well, I suppose we'll all have to be more careful in the future after tonight's events. People are already starting to ask questions."

"Let them," Blake replied. "This could be an opportunity to show people what the White Fang is really like."

"I'm inclined to agree," Ghira said slowly. "I'll have a press conference set up as soon as possible."

Jaune grimaced but kept his mouth shut as he suddenly stood up and skirted around Blake. "In that case, I think I'll head off to bed. It's been a long night, and I have an early day tomorrow." He then beat a hasty retreat towards his room where he threw himself on his bed and pulled out his scroll to continue reading until he couldn't keep his eyes open anymore.

The next day, Jaune woke up early and went around the Belladonna residence to the scene of the fight. Once there, he began focusing on the ground around where he saw the woman from the night before escape until he found light footprints in the dirt.

"Can't believe I'm doing this," he muttered to himself with a yawn as he made his way deeper into the jungle, paying attention to any broken sticks or trampled plants he came across. "Then again, I figured I'd probably run into them eventually if I stayed around here. At least she didn't make this too difficult." He paused as he felt a chill down his neck and figured it would probably be a good idea to keep pulsing his aura periodically in case that crazy chameleon-lady came back and started following him.

When he did so, however, it wasn't the woman from the night before that he found tailing him from a safe distance. "I know you're there, Blake!" He shouted as he crouched down to inspect the ground once more. He felt Blake appear next to him as she leapt down from the tree where she was hiding. "I thought we agreed that you don't need to follow me around like that?"

"Sorry," Blake replied unapologetically. "Old habits. What did you mean when you were mumbling to yourself?"

"That girl from last night may be good at hiding where she is," Jaune answered. "But she's not so great at hiding where she went." He stood up and continued following the trail the girl had left behind all the way to the large wooden walls that separated Kuo Kuana from the wilderness and deserts between Menagerie's handful of settlements. "Trail ends here," he mumbled. "Question is, where did it go?" He ran his hands over the rough bark on each wooden log as he looked for any sign as to where the girl had gone until he noticed something strange with the bark and removed his guantlet to get a better idea of what he was feeling.

"What is it?" Blake asked.

"There's something off about the bark here," Jaune replied, more to himself than to her. He pressed his hand against the wood, following it between two of the massive logs before him. Pressing again, he found the wood yielded to his pressure more easily between those two, and he frowned as he began at the edge of one of them and started rapping his knuckles against it, listening closely. It wasn't until he got about halfway through that he heard the slight change, and it continued all the way to halfway around the adjacent log as well. "It's hollow," he declared, removing his other guantlet as he began running his fingers around to see if he could find some sort of mechanism to open the tree up.

Frowning at being unable to find anything, Jaune lowered himself to the ground to look for any marks that might indicate how the door would open, and swept his fingers through the oddly flat dirt. He couldn't find any markings to indicate the hollow section of the tree would swing open one way or another, and stood up, dusting himself off.

"Welp, I guess subtlety is out," he said, smirking at the confused look Blake shot him before activating the mechanism for his shield, causing it to slide to his shoulder, connect with its other pieces, and descend to his forearm before extending into the shape of a large, rounded rectangle with a pair of trapezoids sprouting from the sides about halfway up. Jaune then closed his eyes and once more dove into the comfortable ocean of warmth that was his aura before diverting it as he reared his arm back and slammed the edge of his shield into the hollow section of the wall, smashing clean through one end and out the other before pulling his arm back and collapsing his shield. "We're probably gonna want to tell your dad about the hole in the wall we found. Wouldn't want any Grimm sneaking through undetected."

"How long has this existed," Blake asked as she examined the hinges inside the hollowed out wall. "Better yet, why does it exist? The Fang is welcome on Menagerie."

"You can't think of any reason why someone would build a way to sneak into a city?" Jaune asked rhetorically. "It doesn't even have to necessarily be the Fang. I've seen enough of Kuo Kuana to know that even a place as nice as this has its own underbelly."

"Either way, this is how Ilia got out of the city?" Blake asked.

"Looks like it," Jaune replied pointing to a section of flattened foliage. "Look there. The trail picks back up again pretty much right away."

"Then what are we waiting for?" Blake took off towards where Jaune had pointed and Jaune smirked.

"Uh, Blake, the trail heads that way," he called after her, pointing towards the Southwestern part of the island. He laughed when Blake froze in place, her ears drooping as she spun in place before marching back to him dejectedly.

"Sorry," she mumbled.

"No worries," he replied. "I'm actually surprised they didn't teach you guys any of this stuff in the White Fang."

"They're not so organized as to have a set curriculum for all of their fighters," Blake explained. "The most important things were being able to fight and hating humans."

"Well, at least you got one of those down," Jaune joked, grinning when Blake allowed herself a small smile while following him deeper into the jungle. The two of them walked in companionable silence as Jaune kept his eyes open for any indicators Ilia may have left behind in her flight from last night.

"When I asked what you meant earlier," Blake said, eventually, her tone more cautious than Jaune was used to. "I actually wanted to know what you were talking about before commenting on Ilia's inability to hide her tracks."

"Were you?" Jaune asked distractedly as he crouched to investigate a few broken twigs that seemed to have caught the dark fur from somethinng else that had been running through this section of the jungle.

"You sounded like you weren't altogether thrilled to help track Ilia down," Blake continued. "You know you don't have to help if you don't want to, right?"

"Yeah, I know," Jaune admitted. "I knew I would have a run in with the White Fang sooner or later - being the only human on Menagerie pretty much guaranteed that. I guess I just..."

"Just what?" Blake asked, her tone more gentle.

Jaune shrugged, struggling to find the right words to explain himself. "It's hard to explain." He sighed and continued walking into the jungle only to be stopped by Blake's hand on his arm.

"If you want to head back, I'll understand," she said softly. "This isn't your fight, you don't have to be here."

Jaune smiled, grateful he didn't have to try and explain the conflicting feelings making his chest tighten uncomfortably. "Thanks, Blake, but you're my friend. That's reason enough to do this."

"That means a lot, Jaune," Blake replied. "Before Beacon, I didn't really have many people I could really call my friend. It's nice to know I still do after Beacon as well."

"Whenever we wind up running into the others again," Jaune replied, reaching up and squeezing Blake's hand. "You'll see that you've still got plenty more than just me."

Blake smiled, but Jaune could see the sadness in her eyes as she averted her gaze. "You know, you actually make me want to believe you."

Jaune returned the expression before turning back to the trail he was following. They were moving farther and farther East, and he was starting to wonder at the surprising lack of Grimm considering what Blake had told him about the wildlife here and what he already knew about the beasts themselves.

"Can I ask you something?" Jaune queried after a few hours of mostly silent tracking and thinking.

"You just did," Blake replied, and Jaune rolled his eyes. He could hear the smile in her voice as she continued. "But you can ask me another, sure. I can't guarantee an answer, though."

"That's fair," he said, crouching down to examine a footprint that had definitely not been left by Ilia, considering the size and claw marks. Standing up he looked around noticed several trees with puncture marks on them as well. "If you don't mind, I was just curious as to what you were doing before I ran into you on that boat."

"I'll tell you," Blake agreed after a few moments of thought. "But only if you answer my own question as well."

"Deal."

Blake took a deep breath. "It was always my end goal to get back home," she explained. "After everything that happened, I wanted to come back and see my family while I still had a chance. More than that, though, I just wanted to get away from it all. But without the safety of Beacon, I had to make sure I stayed off the White Fang's radar. That meant slowly going from town to town, stowing away wherever I could as I tried to make it to the coast. I had a number of old contacts who had gotten out before me, and a few of them gave me shelter and supplies. Even then, though, I... had to do some things that I'm not proud of." She looked away as she took another deep breath to calm herself, only to turn back when she felt the weight of Jaune's hand on her shoulder. She tilted her head up and he looked deep into her warm, golden eyes. In them, he found shame and sadness. The same thing he found whenever he looked his own reflection in the eye. Looking into Blake's eyes, Jaune saw someone who understood the weight of what he had been carrying for the last year, because she was carrying that same weight herself, and as he came to realize this and saw her own eyes widen in realization, the weight became marginally lighter.

"We've all had to do things we'd rather not have," he said softly. "I won't say it's okay or ask you to tell me what you did, but you should know that I don't think any less of you."

"Thanks," Blake croaked, choking back her traitorous emotions. Jaune smiled and turned back to his tracking while she worked to get herself under control before speaking once more. "What about you? What did you do before winding up on that boat?"

Jaune sighed and closed his eyes. "After... everything, I had a hard time readjusting to life with my family. We'd never had it easy, but none of them had ever gone through what I did, and it was hard for them to relate. I spent a good three weeks just... wallowing before I finally got my act together and remembered why I had run off to Beacon in the first place. I wanted to help people, and make money to support my family while I was at it. Mom and Dad weren't thrilled about the idea of me heading out on my own into the wilds to hunt down Grimm, but they finally agreed when one of my sisters, Lavender, offered to help me build a set of weapons and armor that were better than Crocea Mors had ever been."

"Didn't you say your father was a Huntsman, though?" Blake asked.

Jaune smiled and shook his head. "Hunter, not Hunstman. The worst he had ever come across was a really grumpy moose one time. Sure he had run across the odd Grimm once or twice, but nothing on the scale of what we deal with. Anyway, after Lav and I finished making my new gear, I headed out, sorta just wandering from town to town taking whatever jobs they had for me. Eventually, though, I had to stop going towards towns myself."

"Why?"

"With all the things I was feeling after losing Pyrrha, I became a magnet for Grimm. Not a day went by when I didn't run across one or two of them." Jaune chuckled darkly. "Nothing like having to deal with dangerous monsters everyday to kickstart the grieving process. I decided that I was done being a part of the games people like Ozpin and whoever was behind the Fall of Beacon were playing, and started dedicating myself to doing what I knew for a fact was right: protecting people from the Grimm. With my mind made up, I went back to accepting contracts while working my way towards Menagerie, where I figured I would be have to deal with the Fang, but at least I would be away from all the politics the rest of the world was playing."

Blake was silent for several minutes, and Jaune left her to her thoughts as he continued to examine the tracks in the ground before him. Wherever it was that Ilia was headed, there were markings from several different Grimm going in the same direction.

"This just gets weirder and weirder," he muttered to himself.

"What do you mean?" Blake asked.

"Look at the trees." Jaune pointed to one of the nearby logs that had fallen to the ground with a large hole sunk right into the trunk. "Those marks are from something with a stinger. At first I thought it might be a really big Lancer, but the shape of the hole doesn't line up with the shape of their stingers, and a Lancer big enough to do that kind of damage wouldn't fly through the jungle, its wings are too delicate."

"A Deathstalker, then?" Blake suggested. "They are native to the deserts around here."

"I thought so too," Jaune agreed. "But Deathstalkers are patient, they don't normally go out hunting, but find the nearest source of negativity and create a burrow in a cave or something similar. Plus, there are no tracks belonging to one anywhere around here, and the size of the hole would indicate a fairly small Deathstalker relatively speaking."

"So what are you thinking?"

"I'm thinking it's starting to get dark and there's a village nearby. If she hasn't gotten on a vehicle yet, then odds are she went there. We'll pick up the trail tomorrow."

*(OoO)*

Blake reluctantly followed Jaune for another two hours until they arrived at the border to the village of Ma'ula just as the sun was dropping beneath the trees. While none of the settlements on Menagerie were as developed as those inside the kingdoms, Ma'ula consisted of little more than a few dirt roads with small, wooden buildings in between. All of the roads converged at a main square, where Blake could see the closed stalls of what must be the village's market. Behind the square was a somewhat larger building where the governor presumably resided, and that was where Jaune was headed first.

"Where are you going?" Blake asked.

"I get the feeling I won't be welcome there," Jaune replied, pointing towards the nearby inn where they could hear the muffled sounds of shouting, singing, and laughter as the villagers relaxed at the end of the day. The small amount of light shining through the establishment's grimy windows was enough for Blake to read the sign hanging over the door that read The Drunken Rabit as well as the plank of wood just underneath the carved rabbit laying on its back with the words No humans allowed! painted messily across it. "So, I'm going to pay whoever is in that big, official-looking building a visit and tell them that I'm a Huntsman working for your dad. Hopefully, that'll at least keep the villagers from hating me too much."

"You know, you're surprisingly unfazed when it comes to being discriminated against by almost the entirety of Menagerie," Blake commented, earning a chuckle from Jaune.

"After seeing what my sisters have been through, I've grown used to it. At least here, most of them have a good reason for hating humans."

"That doesn't make it right," Blake muttered angrily, glairng once more at the inn before turning her attention to the people who were starting to appear at their windows to stare at them suspiciously.

"No," Jaune agreed. "It doesn't. But getting angry won't change anything, and that's not why we're here."

Blake watched him continue walking towards the town hall and couldn't help but be impressed. She could see that he was aware of the way people were staring at him - no doubt word having reached everywhere on Menagerie of the human Huntsman by now - but he paid them no mind as he seemed to be quickly taking in every aspect of the village, looking for points of strategic value.

Her observations were cut short as they approached the town hall and heard shouting. Grabbing Jaune, she threw them both to the ground behind a nearby closed down merchant stall as the large wooden doors were thrown open and she looked up to see two hooded figures walking down the steps.

"Brother Adam will not be pleased," a familiar voice noted, and Blake's eyes widened.

"It is no trouble," a slightly deeper one replied, and Blake looked at Jaune to see that he too seemed to recognize the voices of the Albain brothers. "If Oryx cannot see the benefits of supporting his fellow brothers and sisters, then we shall simply have to show him."

"Are you sure?" The first voice asked. "This close to Kuo Kuana?"

"After the mess that Sister Ilia made, Ghira will be too concerned with investigating her to worry about matters outside of his precious city. It is fortunate we were able to extract her so quickly."

"And the human staying with him and his daughter?"

"What better scapegoat for Brother Adam's plans then one of them?"

"Speaking of which, we still need to find a way to secure the youngest Belladonna somehow."

One of the brothers sighed. "I suppose. This... obsession of his is becoming something of a... distraction."

Blake was unable to make out the rest of what they said as she crouched behind the stand, frozen.

Adam was on Menagerie. He was looking for her. Fear gripped her chest, and she suddenly found it extremely difficult to breathe as images of what Adam would do to her once he found her surged through her mind. Images of violent, bloody retribution for her perceived betrayal of both him and their cause. Images that stopped when she remembered fiery golden hair and lilac eyes turned red with rage before blood and tears swam in her mind's eye. At that moment, her fear transformed. The ice in her veins became fire, burning through her muscles and urging her forwards with thoughts of exacting her own retribution. No more cowardice. She would show the same bravery Yang had and take down the one who had caused her so much pain.

Blake was nearly to her feet, prepared to go after the two brothers when she was yanked back to the ground. Whipping around she nearly snarled at Jaune as he kept her from pursuing their targets.

"What are you doing?!" She hissed. "They're getting away."

"I know," Jaune replied. "But they aren't our main concern."

"Did you not hear them? They know where Ilia is! Adam too!"

Blake struggled to escape his hold only to yelp when Jaune grabbed her with both hands and pinned her underneath him so that she was forced to stare up into his eyes as he glared down at her. "Calm down," he commanded slowly, his tone sending shivers down Blake's spine as she became suddenly aware of how close the two of them were.

"No!" Blake snarled. "I have to go after them!"

"No, you don't." Jaune's tone remained cool and soft even as Blake found herself getting more and more incensed.

"Yes, I do! You heard them! He's after me! The only way I beat him is if I get to him first!" Her eyes began to sting as tears pricked the corners of them. "I can't keep living like a coward! I have to end this. For Yang!"

"Then you'll die like an idiot!" Jaune growled, lowering himself until their faces were mere inches from one another. "Do you think Yang would want that? This isn't you, Blake!"

"You don't know anything about me!"

"I know that you're one of the smartest, strongest, most talented women I have ever met," Jaune retorted. His features softened as he reached up and cupped her cheek. "I know that you have suffered and are terrified of what that Adam guy will do to you if he finds you. I know that, at the moment, you're angry and want revenge for what he did to you and Yang, and that, at the moment, that's outweighing your fear. I know that, once the anger fades, the only thing that will keep you going is your guilt."

The entire time Jaune spoke, Blake was unable to look away from his cobalt blue eyes. More than his words, it was the understanding and care she saw there that made the constricting feeling in her chest loosen. When he pinned her to the ground, she felt trapped, restricted. Flashes of nights where she was caught in the same position underneath Adam had flooded her mind, but as she looked into his eyes, and felt his hand on her cheek, those feelings changed. She felt sheltered. Jaune knew what she was feeling, because he had gone through the same thing. She could see it in his eyes. The sadness, the rage, the fear, and, most prominent of all, the care.

"I'm so scared," she whispered, her tears boiling over and streaming down her face.

"I know," Jaune replied, just as softly. "But you're not alone. We'll watch each other's backs, and when the time comes, should Adam make any sort of move against you, I'll be right there by your side."

Blake's voice died as she cried quietly into the soft material of Jaune's hoodie, taking comfort in the smell of sea water, earth, and citrus while he gently cradled her to him. Eventually, she felt herself calming down and sat up, smiling when Jaune handed her a rag that he had pulled out of his pocket.

"Thanks," she whispered, wiping her face. Jaune merely smiled and nodded as the two of them reclined against the closed stall and stared up at the sky. "So, what do we do next?"

Jaune's face hardened back into that of the warrior she had seen so much since reuniting with him and he pulled her to her feet. "First, we find somewhere to rest for the night. Then, we go pay a visit to that Governor those two creeps were talking about. He needs to be warned."

"About what?" Blake asked, her curiosity helping her reclaim her composure.

"His village is about to be attacked by Grimm."

**A/N: Not an easy chapter to write, that's for sure. I've re-written that last section at least four times, trying to find the best way to move the plot along. I'm not completely satisfied with how it turned out, but I finally got to the point where I just had to let it be so that I could move forward. Anyway, hopefully I won't have the same problem with the next chapter, and you guys still liked this one a bit. Once again, thanks for all the reads and reviews, it really helps keep me inspired. See ya next time!**


	8. Chapter 8

She had spent the night before at The Drunken Rabit, speaking with the villagers about how life was for them. Once they had learned that she was the daughter of their Chieftain, they had been more than happy to brag about how well their village was doing thanks to a nearby Dust mine they had discovered. Some asked if her father would pay them a visit anytime soon, and Blake was relieved to see that people outside Kuo Kuana still had respect for him. It also explained why Fennec and Corsec had been meeting with the Governor; with Atlas declaring an embargo on Dust, supplies were dwindling rapidly as the Schnee Dust Company was unable to do any sort of importing or exporting. That meant the White Fang was probably running low, especially after the huge amounts they used during the Mountain Glenn incident and the attack on Beacon.

Meanwhile, Jaune had simply elected to camp outside of the village, joining her in the morning with his hood up outside the inn. Together, they had gone to the town hall accompanied once more by the strange and suspicious looks of the villagers they passed, reigniting some of Blake's anger despite it clearly not affecting Jaune.

"If you don't calm down, you're just going to bring the Grimm here that much faster," Jaune said, once more surveying his surroundings rather than the people occupying them.

"They, of all people, should know how it feels to be treated differently because of species," Blake hissed.

"So, maybe they feel I deserve it," Jaune reasoned. "Either way, their opinions of me aren't my concern. Their lives are."

Blake huffed and kept her eyes forward as she followed him up the steps to the town hall, where a quick mention of her name earned them an immediate meeting with Governor Oryx, who turned out to be a rather short, wiry man, barely reaching her forehead if she counted his long horns, her chest if she didn't. He had thinning grey hair and a bushy goatee that concealed his mouth as he glared at Jaune through squinted eyes.

"And how can you be so sure my village is in danger?" He asked skeptically.

"Because I've been working for Ghira for the past month, hunting down and killing any Grimm that get too close to settlements," Jaune replied. "I've been tracking this one almost since I got here and it's headed in this direction."

"If it's a threat, then I'm sure Miss Belladonna here can handle it," Oryx countered. "I don't want help from your kind, boy."

Blake opened her mouth to offer a scathing retort of her own at this stubborn little man who would treat her friend so poorly when Jaune stepped in front of her, cutting her off as he lifted his chin up and glared down at the governor with a look that was eerily familiar to what Blake had seen Weiss give others when they annoyed her.

"Blake isn't an active combatant," he sneered, pulling out a piece of plastic from his pocket and tossing it to Oryx. "She's only able to help with the express permission of a licensed Huntsman, otherwise any and all damages will be handled by you as opposed to a Huntsman Insurance Agency. And trust me, this Grimm is a big one." Oryx's face got increasingly red as Jaune spoke before the younger man seemingly dropped his arrogant facade and shrugged nonchalantly. "But, if you won't accept my help, then I'll just have to tell Ghira to go ahead with his negotiations with those two White Fang members."

"You'll do no such thing, boy!" Oryx shouted. "Those hooded sons of bitches think they can just go over my head to bleed our Dust mine dry? I won't have it!"

"So you'll accept my offer, then?" Jaune asked.

Oryx froze mid-tirade and glared menacingly up at Jaune, who stood there unfazed. "Don't look so smug, you jackass. I may not care for the Fang's ruining people's livelihoods, but that doesn't mean I won't be hoping those Grimm don't gut you before you're done with them. At least then Miss Belladonna here won't have to deal with your insuferable attitude."

Jaune grinned and plucked the card up off Oryx's desk as he turned in place and sauntered out of the town hall, Blake following quickly on his heels.

"What was that?" She demanded.

"I take it you're talking about me channeling my inner-Weiss and actively coming across as an arrogant jerk?" Jaune replied, catching her off guard.

"Y-yeah," she stuttered as they made their way through the town square before recomposing herself. "Did you have to antagonize him like that?"

"Probably not," Jaune conceded. "But this was the quickest way to get him to agree to letting me help, and, more importantly, spread word to others about why they shouldn't accept the Fang's."

"By reinforcing their ideas that all humans are cruel, arrogant, jackasses?"

Jaune shrugged, his expression hardening momentarily. "Most people are pretty crappy, regardless of race. They can go on hating me for the rest of their lives, so long as I can make sure they keep on living."

"And when their collective hatred just winds up bringing more Grimm to their doorstep?" Blake asked.

"Did anything like that happen while you were in the White Fang?" Jaune countered.

Blake paused as she realised what he was implying. For a group as full of hatred and bitterness as the White Fang, they never had to deal with Creatures of Grimm at a rate higher than any other group of wandering people. This only led to more questions, however, as she remembered reading about the many camps of bandits roaming the continent of Anima. Shouldn't large congregations of criminals, with hearts filled with greed and malice, be an impossibility outside of the kingdoms, where they weren't protected against the avatars of destruction that were supposedly attracted to those kind of negative emotions?

"It's big," Jaune said, breaking her from her thoughts as they made their way out of the village. His head was tilted back and he was staring off into the distance, speaking more to himself than anything. "Prints show it has four legs, feline-like paws according to shape; that means stealth and retractable claws."

"What are you doing?" Blake asked, stifling a chuckle when Jaune snapped back to reality before looking away, a hint of red dusting his cheeks.

"S-sorry," he muttered. "I'm normally on my own during contracts, it helps me get my thoughts in order to say them out loud."

"By all means, don't stop on my account," Blake replied, smiling and placing an encouraging hand on his arm, realizing belatedly just how much higher his shoulder was than hers. "Witnessing your thought process is pretty interesting."

Jaune grinned as they entered the jungle once more. "It's big enough to need room to maneuver, but not smart enough to understand its disadvantage just yet."

"How can you tell?" Blake asked as they approached the smoldering remains of Jaune's little camp.

"Grimm hunt people," Jaune explained. "They're drawn to our negativity. When they attack a village or town, everyone's first instinct is to run. Get as far away as possible. A wooden door isn't going to stop a Beowolf, and nothing a place outside the kingdoms is going to have the resources to build will stop anything bigger. The older a Grimm gets, the smarter it becomes. They know that the majority of their prey aren't going to take cover inside a building, and won't waste the energy getting to those who do. Younger Grimm, though, are all instinct and hatred, they easily fall into a frenzy and start destroying anything and everything around them. Based on the destruction this one has left behind it at Gerard's farm and around here, it's safe to say that it still feels those frenzies."

To say she was impressed would be an understatement. She had seen evidence before of Jaune's potential as a tactician, and it seemed that he had only improved in that regard over the past year. "And I'm guessing the age of the Grimm has bearing on how you plan to take it down?" Blake asked.

Jaune nodded. "An older Grimm would avoid me in favour of the easier prey. A younger one will be attracted to the challenge. On top of that, Grimm develop more and more bone plates as they age. Considering all the evidence points to a single Grimm, it's one that I've never seen before, which means I need every advantage I can get."

"We need every advantage," Blake corrected. "I'm fighting with you."

Jaune looked like he wanted to protest, but eventually chose not to, clenching his jaw and nodding as he grabbed his things. "Keep to the trees," he said. "Use your gun while I keep it distracted. When you find an opening, hit it hard and hit it fast, then get away as fast as you can."

Blake nodded and settled into the familiar role of keeping an eye on their surroundings while Jaune tracked the Grimm they were hunting.

"Random question," he said after nearly an hour of silence. "Are there many aircrafts on Menagerie?"

"Not that I'm aware of," Blake replied. "Why do you ask?"

"Saw one fly overhead not too far from the village last night." He didn't look away from where he was crouched on the ground, running his hand through the damp, spongy earth. "Wanted to know what to make of it."

"Knowing my luck and your apparent mastery of deductive reasoning, I'm sure you'll find a scrap of cloth and crumbs in the dirt that both somehow point to the White Fang air-dropping dogs in here just to make my life even more miserable," Blake snarked, her annoyance at yet more questions making themselves known leaking through.

"Nah," Jaune replied standing and stretching his back as he turned to her. The hoodie her mom had provided him from the market in town after seeing how torn up his was, rode up and Blake caught a slip of the tan skin underneath, displaying surprisingly defined musculature that made her face heat up the more she looked. "If they wanted to make you miserable, they would just go after the tons of fish you and your parents go through every day."

Blake gasped in mock horror. "No! Not even the White Fang is that cruel!"

Jaune grinned, one side of his mouth rising higher than the other, giving him a distinctly lopsided expression that Blake couldn't help smiling at as well. "That or they're gathering and burning every copy of Ninjas of Love they can find."

"How do you know about that?" Blake demanded, her face reddening.

"About the series in general, or the fact that you and your dad read them religiously?" Jaune asked, his grin widening as Blake's eyes widened upon hearing about her father's taste in literature.

"Dad reads them?" She asked, unable to supress her laughter at the image of her father hiding a copy of the books in his desk to read in secret.

"Your mom is chocked full of embarassing moments about both you and your dad," Jaune replied. "A lesser man would be inclined to consider the possibility of blackmail after hearing about how you used to run around buck naked whenever your parents had a visitor."

Blake's face reddened and her ears drooped to her skull as she groaned. "No. Don't tell me she..."

"Busted out the photo album?" Jaune finished for her. Blake whipped out Gambol Shroud and swung it threateningly towards his neck, taking satisfaction in the way his eyes widened. "If I didn't know better, I'd say you were embarrassed," he said, smiling as the tension bled from his posture.

Blake's eyes narrowed as Jaune raised a gloved hand to gently push her blade away from his neck with a sheepish laugh. "You're surprisingly calm considering I was inches from cutting your head off," she noted.

Jaune smiled and waved off her concern. "You wouldn't have done that," he replied, not a trace of doubt in his tone.

"So long as you never bring up any stories my mother told you, you're right."

"Not even the one about you collecting a bouquet of exclusively poisonous plants and handing them out to everyone you would see?"

Blake smiled, her chest feeling much lighter as they continued to walk through the jungle. The two of them walked together for most of the day, sometimes talking lightly about everything that wasn't related to Grimm, or the White Fang, or Beacon, or anything like that. Sometimes, they just carried on in a silence that Blake was coming to appreciate more and more. It reminded her of the nights in her dorm back at Beacon when Ruby, Weiss, and Yang were asleep while she sat up reading. There were no expectations for her to say anything or act in any way, she could just sit quietly and be herself, comfortable in the knowledge that she wasn't alone.

"So..." Jaune trailed of thinking. They were playing a game of questions to pass the time as he tracked the Grimm they were hunting. "What's your opinion on milk?"

Blake raised an eyebrow, chuckling. "Milk?"

Jaune laughed sheepishly and scratched the back of his neck. "I know about your addiction to all things aquatic, I was wondering if you had any other..."

"Catlike tendencies?" Blake finished. Normally she would be offended, but there was an innocence in the way Jaune was asking that prevented her from feeling the usual indignation.

"Well, my sisters both have bird traits, and they love fish and hunting with our dad. They've also got fantastic eyesight. Velvet had a secret addiction to carrots. You can't really blame a guy for noticing the connection."

"I guess not," Blake replied, shrugging. "Personally, I'm not a huge fan of milk, but my mom loves the stuff. It's not really something most faunus will talk about since it just gives bigots more ammunition, but most of us share some sort of behavioural tendencies with our animal side. How much or how little changes from person to person, though."

"Explains why you hated Ruby and Yang's dog," Jaune muttered under his breath only for Blake to flush, her ears pressing flat to her head as she glared at him.

"That little... monster chewed up three of my books!" She hissed. "Three!"

Jaune laughed, holding his hands up once more. "Fair enough."

"Anyway," she said, recomposing herself. "It's my -"

Her mouth closed with a click as she was interrupted when Jaune raised his clenched fist. "We're close."

Crouching down once more, Jaune picked up a large, obsidian feather and scowled. Even Blake knew what that meant: the thing they were tracking could fly. His sheath moved along its rails, reconnecting with the extra armor covering the left side of his neck, chest, and back before gliding to its place on his forearm. Rather than expanding into the massive tower shield she had seen before, however, Jauned pushed a button on it, detaching the blade and additional armor with a soft click while the original sheathe expanded into a kite shield more reminiscent of what he used to wield. In his other hand, the blade and additional plates of metal seemed to expand on their own into a wide, triangular blade while a long, nearly five-foot shaft extended from the bottom. Twirling the newly formed spear, Jaune turned to her, expression stoney, and pointed to the thick foliage overhead, indicating where he wanted her. Drawing Gambol Shroud and folding it into its pistol-form, Blake nodded seriously and easily clambered up the thick branches to perch over him only to frown as he planted his spear in the ground and lowered himself to his knees, his eyes closed.

She watched him curiously, resisting the urge to call out as he seemed to concentrating deeply before she realised how quiet their surroundings had become. The slight breeze had died down, and no matter how hard she strained her ears, Blake couldn't detect the sounds of birds or any other sign of life anywhere near them. The lively, open atmosphere they had been enjoying became oppressive, the comfortable shade of the trees becoming homes for all sorts of imagined terrors culminating in the sound of massive wings flapping before a dark form dropped between the trees behind Jaune and began quietly stalking towards him.

*(OoO)*

Jaune opened his eyes and took a deep, calming breath as he heard the low, rumbling growl of whatever Grimm they had been hunting from behind him. Steeling his nerves as he felt the familiar sensation of fear that electrified his senses everytime he faced off against the monsters, he watched the ground in front of him as the shadow of whatever it was got closer and closer, his muscles tensing as blocked out the heat of the midday sun on the back of his neck. He continued waiting, ignoring the part of him that was screaming to run and reprimanding the idiocy of this plan, until he felt the hot, damp breeze of its breath on his neck.

Sending a silent thought of gratitude to Lavender and her amazing engineering skills, Jaune sprung to his feet and grabbed his sword-spear, channeling his aura through it and memories of Nora, Ruby, and Pyrrha through his muscles as he twirled to the side and brought the blade down as hard as he could into the beast's side, feeling the aura-enhanced blade hack through the tough feathers into the muscles and tendons of the thing's wing before jumping back.

Its ability to fly away hindered, Jaune took a moment to examine the Grimm before him, analyzing his opponent. The Grimm looked like a massive lion with the typical bone-like spines lining its back and protecting its joints. Its claws were the length of his head and he mentally reminded himself that he did not want to be anywhere near them unless he had to. Its tail was like a scorpion's, ending in a deadly stinger, while row after row of spikes lined the rest of the appendage. Worst of all was the Grimm's head. Crowned by a protective mane of bone, the Grimm's face was distinctly humanoid, with a square jaw and pointed nose. It looked like someone who had never seen a person before had tried to carve one from marble, its baleful red eyes making him tighten his grip on his weapons. The humanoid facsimile lasted only a moment when the creature reared back in pain, opening its mouth with a sickening crack that extended far past where the jaw should have ended, hinging wide like a snake to reveal multiple row of razor-sharp teeth as it let loose a roar that shook the ground beneath his feet only to be interrupted by gunfire from above courtesy of Blake.

The Grimm snarled in her direction, whipping its long tail through the air, surprising Jaune as the spines that covered it detached and were sent flying in Blake's direction. Blake's eyes widened and she quickly managed to dodge with use of her semblance. Focusing himself, Jaune twirled his spear and ran towards the Grimm swinging his blade at its leg and earning a pained shriek from the monster before being lifted off his feet and sent flying himself thanks to a swipe from its other paw. Shaking his head to clear the remaining diziness, Jaune watched Blake jump from tree to tree as she took pot shots at the creature.

The two of them tried to play off each other, forcing the Grimm to constantly switch its attention from one to the other, but the monster was extremely adept at covering its blind spots, as its stinger handled anything its claws and teeth couldn't reach, and the projectile spikes it launched covered any targets out of range, and its agility, even with an injured paw, was incredible as well. Jaune had just redirected a stab to avoid being turned into a chew toy and nicking the atrociously humanoid face when Blake dove at the creature's exposed back, both her blades poised to bite deep into its flesh only for them to barely cut through its tough hide before the Grimm stretched its tail out and bucked its legs, knocking her into the air before being swatted into Jaune and sending them both barreling towards a nearby tree.

Jaune groaned as he felt the impact of Blake against his chest and his back against the thick trunk of the tree.

"It's tougher than it looks," Blake wheezed, struggling to her feet.

"It looks pretty tough," Jaune replied, watching the Grimm rise as well, its injured front leg having been unable to support its weight when it threw Blake off its back. He frowned, as he quickly replayed what had just happened in his head. Blake's weapons didn't have the weight, strength, or leverage he did, so she wasn't able to cut through the Grimm's tough hide as easily, but that didn't mean there wasn't something that could. Before he could share his plan with her however, the creature released another ear-splitting roar and he watched wide-eyed as its mouth unhinged wider than before, an orange glow rising from withing the abyss of its throat.

Grabbing Blake by the back of her neck, he tossed her behind him and pressed a button on his spear, shrinking and reattaching it to his shield in time for it to expand into its massive great shield form which he used to cover them both as the Grimm unleashed a massive deluge of fire that scorched the air and ignited the surrounding trees. Anticipating an attack while they were distracted, Jaune switched his shield to his right hand and used it to block the incoming claws while tossing Blake underneath it.

"Slow it down!" He shouted. "Use the spikes!"

Blake frowned but nodded as she suddenly understood what he was trying to convey, and returned her katana to its pistol form as she ran between the Grimm's legs and shot at it from the back. The Grimm tried to turn to face her, but was cut off when Jaune drew his sword and plunged it into its other paw, pinning it to the ground long enough for the Grimm to resort to hurling spikes at her when its stinger couldn't reach. Making use of her semblance, Blake easily avoided the projectiles and plucked them out of the air as she sprinted back towards Jaune, sliding along the ground and stabbing them into the monster's inner thighs. Jaune grabbed her wrist and hauled to her feet as the Grimm screeched in pain and tried to fly away, only to crash twenty feet from them.

"What now?" She asked as they faced the monster that was hissing in their direction, its tail whipping angrily through the air. They couldn't get close to it without risking being skewered or cooked alive, and Blake's bullets were little more than an annoyance to it.

Rather than answer, Jaune switched his sword and shield back to their original hands and collapsed his shield, returning it to his back as a sheath before closing his eyes and gripping his blade with both hands. It didn't take long to find the sea of energy within himself, and Jaune took a moment to bask in its warmth as he concentrated on redirecting its flow outside of his body to surround his blade with an ephemeral silver light that curled and dance like wisps of smoke before strengthening still to a enshroud his weapon in a shimmering white blaze.

You have a greater reserve of aura than anyone I've ever taught, a voice said in his memories. While this means you will always have a harder time controlling it than most, the sheer amount of it will allow you to do things others have never even dreamed of.

Opening his eyes, Jaune glared at his target and brought his sword in a massive vertical slash just as the Grimm was releasing another plume of flames. A wave of silver light blasted forth from his blade and tore a deep trench in the ground as it raced towards the Grimm, growing all the while and smothering the fire it was about to release. It swept through the monster destroying flesh and bone alike and stopped once it reached the other side, leaving two singed halves of the beast to fall to the ground before disintegrating.

Sighing with relief, Jaune shrunk and sheathed his sword before turning to Blake with a sheepish grin as he examined their burnt surroundings. "So, it could breathe fire."

"Apparently," Blake replied.

"Can't say I saw that coming."

**A/N: Hopefully this offers some insight into how both Blake and Jaune view the injustices of the world after Beacon as well as what was hopefully a more interesting fight scene. Not much to say concerning this one, but hopefully you all liked it and continue to read and review. Have a nice week!**


	9. Chapter 9

"You've really improved since our time at Beacon, Jaune," Blake remarked as they made their way back to Ma'Ula.

Jaune released a bark of laughter and smirked at her out of the corner of his eye. "I'd almost be flattered," he said dryly. "If you didn't sound so surprised, that is."

Blake's cheeks flushed but she pressed on. "Seriously, how did you come so far in just a year?"

"Experience, mostly," Jaune replied with a shrug. "Like I said before, the first few months were tough for me. I was fighting Grimm pretty much every day. Eventually, I stopped thinking about what I couldn't do, and started focusing on what I could."

Blake frowned. "I don't understand."

"I didn't have a lick of combat training when I came to Beacon beyond letting bullies punch me in the face so they wouldn't touch my sisters," he explained. "But my sisters and I have been dancing since we could walk. So, I took that and mixed it up with what I remember from how you, and Ruby, and Pyrrha, and everyone else fought amd just sort of," he waved his hands in the air in front of him aimlessly, "went with it. I'm still not nearly as good as I could be, though, so I try and use whatever free time I have to train when I can."

Blake's jaw nearly dropped as she listened to Jaune explain himself. The way he talked about teaching himself made it sound like a simple matter of trial and error with a dash of emulation, but the more she thought about it the more complicated it sounded. There were masters of combat who spent their entire lives doing what Jaune did, and they tended to have the benefit of a safe, controlled environment to polish their form. Jaune did it while fighting for his life.

"And that... thing you did," Blake asked as she struggled to maintain her composure. "You somehow managed to teach yourself to fire beams of energy from your sword? Or is that also part of your semblance?"

"No," Jaune chuckled shaking his head. "My semblance is just what you've seen so far: I can use my aura to amplify someone elses in any way I want. I ran into a Huntress on a covert mission during my travels, and she taught me for a while in exchange for being her meat-shield on some assignments. What I did there was just some beginner-level aura manipulation. I just channeled my aura through my sword and swung."

"Jaune," Blake said with exagerrated calmness. "We all channel aura through our weapons. It helps keep them in shape and powers the mechanisms so that they can mecha-shift. What you did... I've never seen it before."

Jaune chuckled sheepishly. "Yeah... when I was being taught, we figured out I have too much aura to properly do most techniques like everyone else. Apparently, some people can use their aura to keep them warm without a fire; when I tried, I nearly started a fores fire. Turns out quantity is a quality of its own."

"Well, you certainly have come a long way," Blake remarked for lack of anything else to say.

"There's that surprised tone again," Jaune pointed out with a laugh, making Blake smile and roll her eyes while he playfully narrowed his. "You know, one of these days, I'm going to make you laugh."

"Is that so?" Blake asked.

"Oh yeah," Jaune declared. "And not just that cute little giggle you do when you're humoring us or I do something particularly embarassing. I'm gonna get a full on side-splitting, gut-busting, tears-in-your-eyes laugh out of you. You might even snort."

"And what made you decide to undertake this particular impossible task?"

"Impossible?" Jaune asked, his chest out and chin up as he filled the air with bravado. "If I can get through the Ice Queen that is Weiss Schnee and make her admit to being my friend, I can get you to show your true colours, Starlight."

"Starlight?" Blake asked, smirking. "That's the best you got?"

Jaune shrugged. "I'd have gone for Sunshine, but this seemed more appropriate. Plus, I think Sun would sue me. Would you rather I take the Yang-route, and pick a nickname with cat-based pun in it?"

"No," Blake replied flatly. Vague memories of Adam using a series of pet names for her ranging from darling to my love flickered by her mind's eye, but she let them go with a sigh as she looked up at night sky above them. "I suppose it could be worse, considering this is coming from the mind of Snow Angel."

"Hey!" Jaune exclaimed with mock indignation. "I'll have you know that Weiss liked that nickname!"

"Yeah, when it came from someone like Neptune."

"Okay, what's that supposed to mean?"

The two of them continued to walk for another couple of hours, enjoying each other's company until Jaune called for them to stop.

"What's the matter?" Blake asked.

"We should set up camp here," Jaune replied, his earlier light-hearted demeanor replaced with the stern Huntsman Blake had come to realize existed just beneath the surface and setting off alarms in her head.

"Ma'Ula is only an hour or so away," Blake argued. "It would be safer to press on than spend the night here."

"Closer to two hours, actually," Jaune corrected. "And you're dead on your feet."

"What are you talking about?" Blake asked. "I feel fi-"

As the words were leaving her mouth, Blake suddenly felt a wave of exhaustion rush through her, nearly throwing her off her feet were it not for Jaune catching her.

"Told you," he said softly, helping her to sit on the ground.

"What... what's happening to me?" Blake asked.

"It's nothing major," Jaune explained. "You've just been feeling the affects of my semblance for too long."

"Your semblance?"

"I can boost your aura with my own," he continued. He placed a hand on Blake's arm and she watched as a surge of silvery light trickled down his own before reaching her, where it took on the familiar dark purple hue of her own and a surge of energy flowed through her, revitalizing her. "It makes you stronger, faster, and more resistant to damage, but if you are feeling it for too long, you get used to it."

"Which makes me feel exhausted when you stop amplifying it," Blake finished.

"We're not on any sort of deadline," Jaune added. "So I'd rather take a break and let you get used to your normal power than risk you feeling even worse."

"But wouldn't it still be safer for me to rest in town then in the jungle?" Blake pressed.

"Not if we have to fight tomorrow as well," Jaune countered, shaking his head. "I should've stopped boosting you once the fight was over."

"Why didn't you?"

"I still have trouble controlling it," he explained. "I can activate it easily enough, and am getting better at boosting who I want instead of just everyone around me, but stopping once I've started is tougher."

"Wait," Blake said, realising what it was he was saying. "Have you been amplifying my aura since the night we fought Ilia?"

Jaune nodded, sighing as he leaned back and stared at the sky. "I gave you a bit of a top-up against that Grimm, but yeah."

"How aren't you dead on your feet?" Blake demanded.

Jaune shrugged. "I didn't give you all that much. Plus whatever you have left comes back to me after I manage to deactivate it, so it's not so bad. Anyway, I'm going to go collect some firewood, in the meantime, eat this, it'll help you recover your energy." He reached into the pocket of his ratty, brown cloak and pulled out a small snack bar that he tossed her way, laughing at the way her nose turned up and ears flattened at the thought of stomaching the disgusting meal replacement before taking off into the night.

"You shouldn't be here," a voice said from above her. Blake tensed as she threw herself to her feet much slower than she would have liked and reached for Gambol Shroud. "I'm not here to hurt you," Ilia said, raising her hands.

Blake remained standing, but released her grip on her weapon, crossing her arms as she glared at Ilia. "What are you doing here?"

"You need to leave," Ilia said. "While you still can."

"What do you mean?"

"It's not safe here for you."

"I figured as much when the Fang sent you to spy on me and nearly kill my mother," Blake hissed.

Ilia's shoulders drooped and her skin turned a pale shade of blue. "I'm sorry about that," she muttered. "I was just trying to cause a distraction, I had no idea it would be your parents coming around that corner. I'd never hurt you like that, you know that."

"No, but you will report on everything my family and I do, won't you?" Blake retorted.

"Things are changing, Blake," Ilia said, her expression pleading. "The White Fang is only going to get more powerful, and if you keep being seen hanging around that human..."

Rage filled Blake and she clenched her fists as her eyes narrowed. "You stay away from him," she hissed.

"He should be staying away from you!" Ilia exclaimed. "Gods, Blake, he's the enemy!"

"He's my friend!" Blake nearly shouted.

"He will betray you! It's in his nature!"

"Jaune wouldn't betray me or anyone else, ever!"

"How can you still be so naive?!" Ilia yelled, her skin turning a bright red in her anger. "You'd think a traitor of all people would be able to spot another!"

Blake bit the inside of her cheek to keep from reeling back at the accusation, its validity notwithstanding. "I'd rather be a traitor than a monster!"

"They're the monsters!" Ilia screamed. "They treat us like filth, force us to do the work they won't, and laugh when it gets us killed! But instead of doing anything, you just want to run away to Mommy and Daddy, bringing a human along for the ride and endangering our entire home."

"And what are you doing?" Blake countered. "Spying on another Faunus on Menagerie, when there is literally one human here to keep an eye on."

"I'm trying to protect you!" Ilia cried. "If it wasn't me, then Adam would send someone worse, and you know that!"

Blake opened her mouth to retort when a soft rustling made both her and Ilia whirl around to find Jaune standing behind Ilia, his large, metal-covered fist slamming into her temple as she turned and smashing her to the ground with enough force to throw a cloud of dirt into the air. Before Blake could react, Jaune was on the ground as well, laying on top of Ilia with his arm around her neck, choking her until she eventually fell unconscious. Without saying a word, he reached into his cloak and pulled out a length of rope, tying her arms and legs in a complicated series of knots before standing up and approaching her in two large steps.

"Are you okay?" He asked, his blue eyes shining as small wisps of silvery light curled into the air around him. Blake was suddenly very aware of the fact that Jaune had well over a foot on her in height and was considerably broader as well as she found herself nearly surrounded by him, her back against the tree. That same feeling of shelter from the night before warmed her chest."Did she hurt you?"

"N-no," Blake replied, shaking her head as he started pacing back and forth.

"Can you walk?" He asked. His voice was soft despite the storm of emotions she could almost feel rolling off of him. "We have to get back to your dad as soon as possible."

Blake tried to take a step, but her legs quivered as the adrenaline from having been caught unawares and her shouting match with Ilia started fading and she would have fallen had Jaune not caught her. "S-sorry," she mumbled, only to squeak as Jaune easily lifted her onto her back, his sword having slid along its rails to his forearm where it sat in its collapsed form.

"Don't worry about it, Starlight," Jaune replied quietly. "You just rest, I guarantee you'll feel better when you wake up."

Blake wanted to protest, but Jaune was already moving, grabbing Ilia's sword and tucking it into his belt before grabbing the woman herself and carefully lifting her by the ropes coiled around her body, carrying her like he would a briefcase. Without even a grunt of effort, Jaune started walking through the jungle, his footsteps deceptively soft for someone of his size and the extra weight he was carrying. Blake tried to stay awake, but eventually the rythmic movement of his walking along with the soft warmth emanating from him lulled her into a deep sleep.

*(OoO)*

Jaune sighed as he trudged through the jungle. The sky above him had become a milky grey, and he was starting to feel a burning in his arms and legs from carrying his passengers for so long. Throughout his semi-solitary journey back to the Belladonna Estate, Jaune found his thoughts drifting to the young woman sleeping peacefully on his back.

While their relationship had been somewhat stilted when he first arrived on Menagerie, Jaune had quickly come to appreciate Blake's presence more than he had first assumed he would. Inquisitive though she may have been initially, in the last few weeks, he had begun to earn more of her trust and with that a lack of questioning that he had truly come to appreciate. More than once he had found himself drifting off into thoughts he wasn't ready to share, and every time, Blake would simply place a hand on his shoulder and smile softly. No questions about what he was thinking or how he was feeling, just a small, silent reminder that she was there.

It was a form of support he hadn't felt in a long time, as not even his family had been properly equipped to be there for him emotionally after Beacon.

Blake readjusted herself on his back and turned her face towards his, a soft rumbling coming from her chest carressing his ear with her ever breath as she tried to get as close to the heat he was producing as possible. This made Jaune smile briefly and provided him with a second wind, even as his other passenger started to stir as well.

Once again, he found himself questioning the turn of events that had him getting involved with people like the White Fang, when he had traveled to Menagerie for the express purpose of avoiding the machinations of large groups and others who would use him and his friends for their own gain. Unfortunately, it was that same purring in his ear, and the smell of lilac and old paper that reminded him why he had decided to help out. The White Fang - or a faction within the organization, at least - had a stranglehold on the people of Menagerie, and they were steadily tightening their grip under the noses of those in charge. If that weren't enough to make his annoyingly loud conscience declare a call to action, the fact that Blake, a friend from before everything had gone wrong and who had only become closer to him since, was right in the middle of it due to her prior involvement with the group and her notion of being responsible for everything they did, if not simply by virtue of being the daughter to the man whose power the Fang was slowly eroding.

It took Ilia several moments to apparently realize the situation she was in as she tested her bonds before looking up at him and fruitlessly struggling to get out of them.

"Don't bother," Jaune said softly, mindful of his still-sleeping passenger. "You're not the first person I've had to transport against their will."

"I knew I should have killed you when I first had the chance," Ilia hissed.

"Shut up," Jaune replied, rolling his eyes before focusing them ahead of himself once more. "We have a ways to go before reaching Kuo Kuana, and some people are still sleeping."

Ilia scoffed. "Trust a human to carry me like a piece of luggage," she muttered under her breath before yelping quietly when Jaune eased some of the force he was using to keep her aloft and bumped her head against the dirt.

"I'm carrying you like a criminal," Jaune corrected. "Luggage gets dragged through the dirt a lot more." He paused, then shrugged. "Then again so do the criminals who think they're witty."

"Calling me a criminal is rich coming from your kind," Ilia retorted, and Jaune just sighed and rolled his eyes.

"You can spare me the self-righteous rhetoric. I don't care whether you think what you did was justified or not."

"Of course you wouldn't," Ilia continued, her voice raising. "Your kind haven't ever cared - umph!" She was interrupted when Jaune lowered her head into the dirt once more and started dragging her, keeping an eye out for any rocks or tree roots so as not to actually harm her.

"I seem to remember asking you to keep your voice down," he said as he raised her back up once more.

"When I get out of here, I'll -"

"Do what? Try to stab another member of Blake's family?"

Ilia's face fell, and Jaune noticed genuine shame in her features, similar to when Blake had accused her of the same thing. This at least proved that Ilia wasn't completely without remorse, if she would show that kind of emotion in front of him: someone she hated on principal.

"How did you manage to sneak up on us like that?" She quietly asked after several minutes of silence.

"By being quiet," Jaune replied vaguely.

Ilia scoffed and turned away, allowing silence to fall over them once more until just before Jaune reached the wall surrounding Kuo Kuana when Blake began to stir on his back, groaning and mumbling something as she buried her face in his neck, trying to avoid the sunlight that streaming through the foliage above them.

Jaune chuckled and smiled as he tightened his grip on one her legs around his waist. "Good morning, Starlight."

"There are no good mornings," Blake grumbled, still not fully awake. "Where are we?"

"Nearly home," Jaune replied, releasing her leg to squat down and pull open the hidden door in the border wall around the village. "Why don't you go back to sleep, and I'll wake you up again later with some nice tuna?"

Blake smiled and nodded, burying herself further into Jaune's back as the soft vibrations of her purring started once more. Jaune's smile grew once she was fully back to sleep and a warmth filled his chest. It felt good to take care of someone for once, rather than always being the one who needed taking care of.

"I think I'm going to be sick," Ilia groused, her nose upturned as she looked away.

Jaune chuckled but ignored her as he continued to walk towards the Belladonna home, arriving there in about twenty minutes and sighing as he came face to face with the large flight of stairs leading to their front door. By the time he reached the top, he was panting with sweat starting to drip down his forehead, and one of the guards had already managed to call on Ghira and Kali, who met him at the door.

"Blake!" Kali gasped as she and Ghira dashed forward to inspect their daughter.

"She's fine, she was just tired," Jaune explained, before they could wake her up. "We needed to keep moving, though, thanks to our surprise visitor." He heaved his arm up, showing off Ilia to Blake's parents.

"Ilia," Ghira said sadly, shaking his head in disappointment.

"Mom?" Blake mumbled. "Dad?" She let out a small yawn as Jaune helped her down to her feet.

"Hello, sweetheart," Ghira said softly.

Blake looked around, noticing where they were and what time it was before whirling around on Jaune with wide, accusing eyes. "Did you carry me all night?"

"Yeah," Jaune replied easily. "So?"

Blake opened and closed her mouth several times before scowling and turning away from him. "Let's just talk to my parents," she said before casting a glare at the tied up woman laying at Jaune's feet. "Then decide what to do with her." Without another word, she stormed off and Jaune turned to her parents with a shrug.

"Speaking of which, what would you like me to do with her, sir?"

"We have a guest room down the hall from my husband's office," Kali said. "Leave her there."

Jaune nodded and grabbed Ilia by the ropes binding her before following Blake's family through the estate towards the rather nice room where he left her on the bed, grabbing an extra coil of rope from his cloak to secure her to the bedposts so that she would be unable to move.

"Don't worry," he reassured her. "I made sure you'll maintain circulation everywhere."

"My hero," Ilia growled, her gaze forced forwards at the wall in front of her while Jaune simply chuckled and left the room to join Blake and her parents in the hall.

"I must say, Jaune," Ghira commented as they made their way to his office. "That was some rather... complex knot-tying you used to restrain her."

"Yeah, I did a lot of camping and stuff with my family," Jaune explained. "My dad taught me all about different knots and how they worked. It only took a couple of contracts for some local bandits for me to figure out how to put the skills to good use."

Ghira chuckled and took a seat next to his wife in one of the couches surrounding the small coffee table in his office as Jaune and Blake took a seat in another. Now that he wasn't moving, Jaune could feel the first tendrils of exhaustion creeping through his limbs and clenched his jaw to stifle a yawn.

"Now, what have you two learned so far?" He asked.

"Corsec and Fennec are working for Adam," Blake said before explaining how they tracked Ilia to Ma'Ula, where they managed to eavesdrop on the two brothers before hunting a Grimm for the Governor.

"How did you know that they would be needing help with a Grimm attack?" Kali asked.

"Because the trail I found near the village were similar to markings I had found at Gerard's farm and a few other locations where Grimm had attacked recently," Jaune explained. He debated whether or not to share the theory he was working on and eventually decided it was time. He didn't want to keep secrets like this if he didn't have to. "I also knew because members of the White Fang were there."

"I'm not sure I follow," Ghira said slowly. "Do you mean to say that the White Fang has something to do with the Grimm attacks you have been investigating?"

"I mean to say that they - or at least the faction of them that Corsec and Fennec belong to - are behind them," Jaune replied. "Have you not noticed that on an island as crowded as Menagerie, you haven't been experiencing as many of the same types of problems as a place with a similar population density would? In Kuo Kuana especially, there's virtually no problems."

"So, you think because my dad looks after the people that the White Fang is somehow siccing Grimm on people?" Blake asked skeptically. "How does that even make sense?"

"I don't mean to imply any failings on your part, sir," Jaune replied, turning to Ghira. "But, have you ever stopped to wonder how an island so dense can feed so many mouths while still having infrastructure largely consisting of wooden huts and dirt roads?"

"I fail to see -" Kali said only to be cut off as Jaune continued. Reaching into his cloak, he pulled out his scroll and called up a map of Menagerie, zooming in on a small section near the edge of the jungle where the massive deserts covering most of the island began, and handing it over to Ghira.

"Or how well-off a village like Huamela can be when it is the farthest from the coast, has the least amount of arable land, no mine for people to work in, and no livestock? Or how consistently your merchants can follow trade routes without fear, when protecting a caravan is a Huntsman's bread and butter? Or how few Grimm attacks reach your desk when you have none of the protections or infrastructure designed to deal with them that the other Kingdoms do?"

Ghira was silent as he contemplated Jaune's words for several minutes, the atmosphere tense enough to chase away some of the tiredness tugging at his eyelids.

"I'm little more than a figurehead," he said softly, drawing gasps from his daughter and wife. "Is that correct?"

"Yes," Jaune replied.

"But... how?" Blake asked.

"They have access to two things that people here are in desperate need of," Jaune explained. "Protection and employment."

"So, they offer to protect people from the Grimm in return for people joining their cause," Kali surmised.

"Not just for new members," Jaune added. "But, if Ma'Ula was anything to go by, they also extort money and resources as well."

"That's right," Blake agreed. "Oryx mentioned Corsec and Fennec trying to bleed his village dry."

"And Ma'Ula has access to one of the largest Dust mines on Menagerie," Ghira concluded, shaking his head angrily. "I'm such a fool."

"You mentioned the Albain brothers calling you a perfect scapegoat," Kali said as she reached over and placed a supportive hand on her husband's shoulder.

"It means they're coming after us," Blake answered. "Jaune is always around us, it would give them a good opportunity to come after one of us and blame it on him."

"I don't think so," Jaune replied. "The people of Menagerie, and those of the Kingdoms all recognize your dad as the one in charge. Without him, the Fang would have to actively take charge to maintain control of Menagerie, which would draw attention to them from the other Kingdoms, who could wipe them out without breaking a sweat."

"Which is why they have maneuvered themselves into a position where any move we take against them would only hurt our people," Ghira concluded.

"The brothers mentioned Adam," Jaune said softly mostly to himself as he expanded the map of Menagerie and considered what was happening. "We know he's in charge of his own faction of the White Fang, and is obsessed with gettingn to Blake. They could use me as an excuse to take her, spread rumors saying I kidnapped her, getting rid of me and increasing distrust in other humans as well."

He noticed Blake shrink into herself through the corner of his eye at the mention of Adam, and idly reached over to wrap an arm around her shoulder in comfort while Ghira slammed his fist into the table, splintering the wood slightly as he growled angrily. "If he thinks he can get anywhere near my daughter without going through me, that man has another thing coming."

"Which is why they probably won't go that route," Jaune continued, unfazed by Ghira's outburst as he slowly stroked Blake's arm comfortingly, unaware of the way her mother was watching the two of them as he stared at the map, deep in thought. "They would need to convince the two of you more than anyone else that I had taken Starlight." He shook his head. "No. Corsec and Fennec are the schemers of this operation, and they see Adam's obsession with her as little more than a distraction. I think odds are that they will use me as an excuse to take control of the White Fang completely. Say that the big bad human came in and slaughtered their leadership, before taking control and using the renewed hatred to bolster their support across Remnant."

"You've given us much to think about, Jaune," Kali said kindly as Jaune stifled another yawn. "Why don't you go get some rest, and when you wake up, we can discuss our next move?"

"Actually," Jaune replied, suddenly very uncomfortable. "I'm going to head back to Ma'Ula. There are going to be more Grimm attacks, and I need to be there to stop them."

"Oh," Ghira said, his eyes wide. "Okay. In that case, allow me to transfer some funds to you for the work."

"Thank you," Jaune replied, standing up and trying not to make it obvious how badly he wanted out of there and away from the decision-making process. Turning to Blake, he smiled and squeezed her arm, earning a small one from her in return before quickly leaving Ghira's office. Just as he reached the door, he stopped and turned back to the three of them. "I nearly forgot," he said, reaching into his cloak once more and pulling out a second scroll. "This was on Ilia when we captured her. It might have something that could be useful on it."

He handed the scroll over without a word and quickly made his way back to the room in which he had been staying, throwing himself on the bed without bothering to remove any of his clothes or equipment and falling asleep within moments.

**A/N: Mostly fluff, trying to show Jaune and Blake being more affectionate with one another without being overtly romantic about it. Besides that, Ilia makes a reappearance, and the plot gets moving with what hopefully isn't as clunky of expository dialogue as it felt when I wrote it, but I wanted to display how many moves ahead Jaune sometimes is thinking, before closing with his reluctance in taking part in these sort of things once more. Anyway, the most important thing I'm hoping for is that you enjoyed it, and I thank you guys for the reads and reviews again. Until next time!**


	10. Chapter 10

Life on Remnant wasn't easy. Confronted with a seemingly unstoppable enemy in the form of the Grimm and their unbridled thirst for the destruction of Mankind, the majority of people were forced to retreat to the safety of four Kingdoms. Life outside these Kingdoms was hard. Towns, settlements, and villages rose and fell like the tide as people attempted to gather together for safety, only for their congregation to attract more of the monstrous horde than their meager defenses could handle. Many saw this as a reason to stay within the safety of the Kingdoms, where walls and soldiers could provide a measure of security - at least, from the threats of the Grimm. Others, particularly those with the necessary skills to protect themselves, simply chose to live in solitude, or small numbers, so as not to attract the Grimm. Some, however, saw an opportunity amidst the destruction. Those who lived outside the Kingdoms, who spurned society and had no honest means of sustaining themselves, who turned to thievery and murder for any number of reasons - people like Shad Taupher, bandit extraordinaire - did not flee the sound of people screaming and monsters snarling; they followed them.

It was fairly simple, really: rather than go through the work of robbing people on the roads, and making sure their bodies were properly mangled so as to look like the work of Grimm and not him and his boys, he could just let the monsters actually do it for him. Grimm didn't care about supplies, or money, or Dust, they only cared about killing. So long as the raccoon-Faunus and his little troupe of cohorts kept made sure to get out before the creatures arrived, they could pillage wherever they wanted and let the Grimm clean up. Then, once the last of the screams had died down, they could grab anything they missed and be off without drawing the ire of Ghira Belladonna should some heartbroken loved one decide to keep digging into the death of someone who had died walking along the roads between villages.

Belladonna was strong, and had access to resources, but to Shad, and many other Faunus, the man's refusal to do what needed to be done was a weakness. The Faunus were a strong and noble people. Respect had to be earned, and while Belladonna's strength had originally won him the respect and position of High Leader, that renown was waning, quickly, as he seemingly turned his back on their culture, and act in a manner the humans found civil. Luckily, the White Fang understood them. They knew that there simply wasn't enough space or resources on Menagerie to accommodate everyone, no matter how many pretty words or grand speeches the Cheiftain made, and so, rightfully, the strong had to take what they needed.

In fact, Shad, and all of his boys, had spent time with the Fang, helping with missions and sharing the occasional resource or information, at one point or another. In fact, he had actually gotten his Aura unlocked while helping them burn down a Schnee warehouse a few years back, the boost in power and protection helping him maintain his position as top dog among his boys. Even their newest recruit - some gimpy Horse-Faunus with a bum leg - had just left a job with the Fang, and had even come bearing information of where their next target would be.

Smirking as he cut down a man who thought his little stand in the square was worth throwing his life away, Shad caught the flutter of the curtains in one of the town hall's upper windows. Undoubtedly, the mayor of this town was too cowardly to defend his people. Shad was going to have to drag him out of his little timber palace before the Grimm got here, as he might have some sort of panic room or escape tunnel in there.

At the moment, though, he was distracted by two distinct sounds: the first was a gasp of fear coming from the new guy - Gerald, or something - and the second was the distinct sound of metal piercing flesh.

"Y-You..." Jerry muttered, and Shad turned around just in time to see him trip on his bad leg as he looked up at another of his boys.

Cobe stood over the old horse with an expression of surprise on his face, a wet, spluttering gasp choking past his lips as the blade sticking out of his chest withdrew and he sank to his knees, before, in one swift move, the sword flashed through the air in a deadly crescent of bloodstained ivory, its soft hum interrupted only by the momentary squelching tear of Cobe's head being removed from his shoulders.

He was tall, maybe six and a half feet, with messy blond hair and hard, blue eyes. His cheeks were gaunt, like most people outside the Kingdoms, with stubble growing over them, but they didn't quite hide how young he was. The sun glinted off the dented metal woven into the leather jacket he wore over a ratty hoodie, and Shad couldn't Cobe had been stupid enough to allow what looked like a beggar with a blade to sneak up on him. Much less a human one. "Go home," he said, barely glancing at the Horse-Faunus on the ground. His voice wasn't deep, but it rumbled with a threatening growl that scratched at Shad's instincts, rather than the usual cracking he'd expect from a teenager.

"So, you must be the human I've been hearing so much about," Shad snarked, a wicked smirk on his face as he and his boys prepared their weapons. "It'll feel good removing your stink from our home."

The human didn't say anything as Shad nodded and one of his boys readied his crossbow with a Dust-tipped bolt and fired it as another ran forward, his machete at the ready. The human shifted his weight and raised his left arm, a massive shield springing forth just before the bolt made impact, glancing off it and flying into a nearby stall at the edge of the market where it exploded. Maintaining momentum, he twirled around the man with the machete, slicing his leg before punching the massive shield into his head once he fell to the ground, crushing his skull with a wet crunch.

"Get him!" Shad screamed, raising his own pistol-knife and firing at the bastard alongside Raldo, a Hawk-Faunus with a feather mohawk and the crossbow, while the others readied clubs, blades, and axes and charged the human.

With barely a grunt, the boy lifted the body still wedged on his shield by its imploded skull, using it to shield him from Shad and Raldo's bullets before hurling it at the rest of them, knocking down the ones in front before engaging the rest in a whirling dance of death. Rather than fight how he expected most shield-bearers to: standing his ground and blocking before retaliating, the kid never stayed still. In only a couple of steps, he had twirled around the four men he had knocked down with the corpse of another, his blade pointed down as it quickly drew a line across each of their throats, while the closest man still standing swung his axe, aiming to split his head like a log. The human shifted once more, barely lifting his shield as the screech of metal on metal tore through the air - the axe glancing off it and its wielder thrown off balance as his swing kept going before the sword came up under his armpit and separated his bicep from his shoulder. An instant later, the blade cleaved into the gut of the next man, and he twisted so the poor bastard's skull was directly in the path of the another's mace. The sword slipped out and he slithered around a stab from the man behind, bashing him with his shield and forcing his long-knife into the chest of the mace-wielder while the human simply continued to spin and stab his blade into the knife-wielder's head - piercing one ear and exiting through the other.

Pulling his blade from the man's skull, he swiped it through the air, sending blood flying from its surface as he charged forward. Shad watched in stupified horror as Raldo cried out, blinded by the crimson fluid in his eyes before being cut straight through from his left hip to his right shoulder. By the time he shook off the paralyzing fear gripping him, the boy's sword had already reached him. He tried to flare use his Aura, but it felt stunted and weak before shattering underneath the blade's edge, not even slowing it down as it removed his arm from the elbow down. His scream was cut short almost before it started as the sword came back on the backswing. The last thing he saw was a glowing silver arc of death, a gentle humming making him feel strangely calm as his head was removed from his shoulders, ending the tale of Shad, Bandit Extraordinaire.

*(OoO)*

"He's a monster!" Yet another voice shouted from her father's office. "No better than the Grimm he claims to fight!"

It had taken very little time for word of what Jaune did in the middle of Ma'Ula to spread. People all over Menagerie were hearing rumors of the human terror who had carved through bodies in the town square, and any goodwill he seemed to have garnered during his stay had seemed to evaporate as the people of Ma'Ula chased him out, hurling insults and stones alike.

"How can you seem so unaffected?" Blake demanded as she sat in the library with Jaune one evening. Even she was slightly disturbed by the description of what he had done, if not by the details themselves, then how Jaune didn't seem concerned with correcting them or what he had supposedly done. Even when a brick had hit him above the eyebrow on his walk back through Kuo Kuana, he did nothing to defend himself. He simply marched through the door of the mansion, ignoring the guards, informed her father that Ma'Ula was safe for the time being, and to let him know if there was any other work he had for him.

"What do you mean?" Jaune asked. Even now, gently rubbing rubbing his equipment down with a rag, coating them in what she guessed must have been some sort of floral-scented polish, almost every aspect of the loveable goofball she had met a little under a year ago having been replaced with this calm pillar of serenity, his features hard as they were sad, she couldn't imagine him holding the same darkness she did. That same evil all of the higher ranked members of the White Fang had possessed.

"Jaune," she said seriously, worried that he might not feel anything having taken the life of someone else. Or worse, that he had enjoyed it. Like Adam. "The people are moments away from forming a mob and lynching you. They think you're some kind of monster."

"And what do you think?" He asked, throwing her off guard.

"I... I think that you slaughtered eleven people, and you don't seem to be showing a shred of remorse," Blake stated. He turned and fixed her with a hard look. She hated the part of her that wanted to shrink back under that gaze, forcing herself to stand up to him, despite her instincts telling her otherwise.

Jaune didn't say anything as he sat there and stared at her for several long moments. His eyes glinted in the firelight, and Blake could see a flash of something in them. Something predatory. Once again she thought of Adam, of the mad gleam in his eye she had taken too long to identify. It was similar to what she was seeing in Jaune's as he stood up slowly. Both men had startlingly blue eyes, but where Adam's burned with fires of his hatred for Humanity, Jaune's were calm. There was no anger or rage in him, just danger.

The two of them were interrupted by a light knocking on the door, turning almost at once to see Blake's mother standing in the doorframe, a sad smile on her face. "Could you two please join us in Ghira's office? We need to speak to you."

Blake nodded and they both followed her mother without a word towards her father's office. They arrived just as Oryx was leaving. The mayor of Ma'Ula took one look at Jaune and spat on the ground at his feet before trying to shove his way past. Jaune was much larger than the man, though, so it only succeeded in making him bounce off his side, barely budging him as he stood impassively behind her mother. With Oryx behind them, the three of them entered her father's office, where he sat at his desk with his fingers laced together and his chin resting on them.

"You certainly know how to give people a headache, Mister Arc," her father greeted as they entered.

Jaune's expression finally broke, a sheepish grin appearing as he scratched the back of his head. "Sorry about that, I guess."

Her father sighed, leaning back in his chair. "You understand what we have to do next, don't you?"

Blake lifted an eyebrow as Jaune nodded, expression serious once more, and looked between the two men. "Dad? What are you talking about?"

"Half the island is calling for Jaune's arrest," her dad explained slowly.

"And the other half just want us to kill him and get it over with," her mother finished sourly. "Unfortunately, there aren't many grounds on which to do either, and if other Huntsmen hear that a major leader like your father did something to someone he hired..." She took a deep breath. "So we have to salvage the situation before people conflate your father hiring Jaune with him ordering what transpired. Show them that we're still on their side."

"When are the White Fang coming to collect me?" Jaune asked, making Blake shoot up from her seat.

"You're giving him to the Fang?!" She screamed. "What Jaune did was bad, I get it, but they'll tear him apart."

"Blake." The steely tone was one Blake had never heard before. One look at the hard glint in his eyes told her she wasn't speaking to her father at the moment, or even Ghira Belladonna, Chieftain of Menagerie. She was looking at the man who had been High Leader of their people in the fight for their freedom and equality. "We won't be giving Jaune to the White Fang. You will."

*(OoO)*

_He was standing just outside the gates to a castle. It should have been abandoned years ago, yet word had reached him that someone had once more taken up residence within its halls..._

_"This is wrong," he said, fists clenched as he looked into the eyes of a stranger claiming to be a friend._

_"You speak as if it were my choice," the stranger replied in his friend's voice..._

_The scene shifted. The castle became a dark and sinister thing, twisted to match the monsters that roamed its halls._

_"I will see him crushed before me..." the voice was soft, but the undercurrents of power flowing through it pulled at him like the riptide._

_"By your will, Milady. He will fall to my sword."_

_She scoffed. "Killing him isn't enough. Like the child whose body he stole, we must take away his toys..."_

_"Sacrifices need to be made..." His friend's voice, spoken from another's mouth. This time they were standing together at the top of a massive clocktower._

_"And who gave you the right?!" He shouted, unable to control his anger._

_"I'm fighting for your very survival!"_

_"No! WE ARE!"_

He was pulled back to the present by the feeling of the boat stopping. Jaune had spent the last two weeks in a small cell at the bottom of a boat headed for Anima. He spent his time counting the seconds between when the next guard would come in to have their turn trying to beat the ever-living stuffing out of him, meditating, and fighting down the familiar feeling of motion sickness. The beatings made good training for his pain tolerance and Aura control, as he had knew that if he kept his Aura activated, he would not only waste it, but the guards, happy to finally take out their hatred for Humanity on someone would simply try harder. Instead, he focused on protecting himself from serious internal damage, allowing them to cut and bruise him.

He took pride in the fact that he never broke. Not once did he beg, or plead for the beatings to stop. He had plenty of weaknesses, he knew that, but the night Beacon fell had been the last time that he would allow his body to be one of them. Unfortunately, that only seemed to make his captors angrier, his silence seeming to be a bigger insult than any he could come up with. Blake never visited, and, honestly, not only couldn't he blame her, he was actually thankful for it. He could see she carried a lot of guilt with her from her time in the Fang, and seeing him bloodied, bruised, and with the word MENACE carved on his back, and SCUM on his chest would just make her feel worse.

"You should feel honoured, Human." Jaune kept his eyes closed as the Ablain brothers approached his cell. He could feel their disgust and contempt swirling through their Auras, mixing with their ambition and greed into a slick, oily thing that nearly made him grimace.

"I doubt you even know what that word means," Jaune snarked, his voice scratchy as he maintained his position on the floor.

One of the brothers growled and took a step forward, only to be stopped by the other with a hand on his shoulder. "History is about to be made, Human," he said, his voice barely above a whisper. "The second Great Revolution is nigh, and it is thanks to you that it will be made possible."

**A/N: Not happy with the pacing of this chapter, but this was my fifth time re-writing the entire thing, and I just wanted it over with. That aside, hopefully you enjoyed it. The fight at the start was fun, as I haven't written Jaune against any humans yet, and I needed to figure out how he would fight them and the massive difference between someone with training and a thug who just picked up a weapon, especially when it came to Aura. I figured that, if Jaune didn't even know what it was at the beginning, then odds are that most people - even bandits - probably don't have theirs unlocked. It also made it easier for people to spin what happened against him, as it looked like he just flat-out butchered a bunch of people, as opposed to defending the town.**


	11. Chapter 11

Blake had managed to spend the last two weeks sequestered inside the private room the White Fang had so generously provided for her while Jaune had been taken below deck. She would only emerge in the dead of night, stealing away to the kitchens to grab herself some food before returning to her quarters, her stony expression enough to keep the few people she came across from doing more than whispering insults under their breath as she passed. More than once, she had wanted to visit him, but she knew how the Fang treated its prisoners, and the idea of seeing him beaten and broken was enough to scare her into staying where she was. Even if she did visit him, she had no idea what she would say. She was still reeling from what he had done outside Ma'Ula. She had seen that he had changed since the Fall of Beacon - hardened from the pain of loss - and that whatever trials he had faced since he started traveling by himself had furthered these changes, but to so ruthlessly slaughter people like he did just didn't make sense to her.

The boat arrived not long after noon, and Blake allowed some of her feelings to show, marching onto the small port on the Eastern coast of Anima with a her bag slung over her shoulder, Gambol Shroud strapped to her back, and a fierce scowl on her face that ensured she was given a wide berth.

"We should arrive at Lake Matsu by early evening," Fennec informed her as the two of them walked toward a nearby bullhead. "High Leader Khan will want to meet with you right away."

"Good," Blake replied. The sooner she got to Sienna Khan, the sooner she could get away from Fennec and Corsec and this entire mess completely. "My parents had much they wished for me to discuss with her."

"In due time, Sister Blake," Fennec's quiet voice made her clench her jaw. "There is the matter of the Human to be dealt with first."

"Oh? Are you guys talking about me?" Jaune asked as he was pushed forward by a pair of masked White Fang operatives, led by Corsac. "I'm touched."

Blake had a hard time keeping an even expression amidst the maelstrom of conflicted emotions she felt upon seeing his battered form. His shirt was torn, hanging from his arms which were bound together at the wrist in front of him. Everywhere she could see, his skin had become a mottled collection of blues, blacks, greens, and yellows, with numerous cuts and minor burns littering whatever space remained. Despite the ridiculous amount of damage he had taken, though, Jaune still stood tall, walking on his own two feet, his eyes gleeming dangerously.

"Silence, Human," Corsac ordered as he grabbed Jaune by the scruff of the neck and shoved him into the bullhead. Blake and Fennec followed him while the two operatives walked around to the cockpit.

"But I just feel so safe with you guys," Jaune sneered. "Like I can open up and tell you anything."

"Please," Fennec quipped. "Feel free to divulge any secrets you may have. It will save our interrogators the effort."

"By all means," Jaune accepted, "why go to all that trouble when I'm more than happy to share how good of a lay your mother was?"

Both brothers scowled, and one of Fennec's dog-ears started to twitch.

"Shut up," Blake hissed. Jaune turned to her and smirked ruthlessly.

"Hey, they asked."

"Our mother is dead," Corsac growled, his fists clenching in his lap.

Jaune scoffed. "Give me, like, twenty seconds - thirty, tops - and I can send you to see her if you'd like."

Anger blazed through Blake, and, before she knew it, the loud crack of her hand slapping him across the face rang above the dull roar of the bullhead's engines. The arrogant facade Jaune wore fell as he turned his head back and looked into her eyes. His expression was neutral as he looked at her, still, no trace of remorse for what he had done, but, as Blake glared deeper into those deep, blue eyes, she did see the faintest hint of an apology, glimmering in their depths.

"Stop. Talking," she hissed.

Jaune took a deep breath, his nostrils flaring. Blinking slowly, he turned his head to look straight forward. For the remainder of the flight, Jaune simply stood there, without making a sound. Regardless of how the bullhead moved, or any turbulence they went through, he remained steadfastly fixed in that one spot. If not for the minute flexing of his legs, Blake would have thought he had somehow fastened himself to the floor. Hours later, the bullhead made its final ascent before landing and opening its doors. Grabbing her bag and hopping out, Blake looked around, taking in the view from their position amongst one of the many islands floating in the air above Lake Matsu.

"Come, Sister Blake," Corsac said, pushing a still-silent Jaune out of the bullhead. "We must meet with the High Leader."

Blake nodded and followed the brothers. The island they had landed on was one of several that the White Fang had hollowed out and occupied. While she had never been to this base in particular, Blake could already estimate most of its layout as the brothers escorted her and Jaune through a small gathering of trees, towards a little cave near the center of the island. Not far into the cave was an elevator that would serve as the primary means of entry and exit for the entire population of the base - any other ways in or out were to be known only by upper brass so they might lead an evacuation should the main entrance be compromised.

The elevator took them down into a series of tunnels that were lit primarily by torchlight so as to preserve electricity for other more essential processes given that all Faunus had exceptional sight in low light. Blake could feel them going down slightly as they headed towards the center of the base, where the most important personel stayed, and where the High Leader, Sienna Khan was likely to be waiting for them. The halls were strangely empty, with only a handful of people roaming around them, watching with morbid fascination as they passed, their expressions anything from disgusted to gleeful when they noticed the prisoner walking between the brothers.

Jaune, for his part, was completely composed. He wasn't just staring into space anymore, and his entire posture seemed to change as his eyes scanned his surroundings. In the time since they had reunited, Blake had seen so many different sides to Jaune, it was almost like there were multiple people living in his body. What she saw now was different from the young man, hurt from the loss of his best friend trying to do a little bit of good in the world, or the career Huntsman, unconcerned with who was on what side so long as he could do his job, or even the man who had walked through the streets of Kuo Kuana, soaked in the blood of those he killed. The way Jaune walked now was not with the smooth, almost predatory grace he had seemed to have adopted during his travels, but with a quiet confidence that reminded her of the few times she had seen General Ironwood from Atlas during the Vytal Festival. His shoulders back, his chin up, and his gaze analytical, Jaune looked every bit the hardened warrior - the soldier - that the general had. The only difference were in their eyes. Where she remembered Ironwood's as sharp, constantly scanning rooms for threats to the point of bordering paranoia, Jaune's were slower, seemingly not as concerned. Above all, though, the biggest difference was that, deep in the almost glowing blue of his eyes, paradoxically, Jaune seemed older - ancient, even.

Eventually, they arrived at a large set of doors carved out of the rock of the island, bearing the familar three-claw-marks of the White Fang. The guards standing sentry outside opened them as Blake, the brothers, and Jaune approached, revealing a long hall carved from the surrounding stone, lined with columns bearing torches that cast soft, warm light. They entered the hall, and a hauntingly familiar voice filled Blake's veins with ice.

"High Leader Khan, I am begging you." Blake almost stumbled as the voice of Adam Taurus brought with it phantom sensations and visions from the last time they saw each other. He was kneeling at the end of the room before a set of stone steps that led up to the throne of the High Leader.

Leaning back in her seat, flanked by a pair of guards wielding spears on either side, was Sienna Khan. The flickering light of the torches cast shadows on her dark skin - covered in striped tattoos - and reflected off the steely gaze of her orange eyes as they narrowed, her tiger ears twitching angrily atop her wild, chin-length bob of black hair.

"High Leader," Corsac announced, bowing next to his brother as they approached to stand next to where Adam stayed kneeling on the ground. Blake hung back, unable to force herself to get too close to the man who had hurt her so. The man who had hurt Yang.

"Corsac, Fennec," Sienna greeted. "I see you have returned from Menagerie with quite the prize."

"We bring you the Human responsible for the Massacre of Ma'Ula, High Leader," Fennec replied. "As well as an emissary from Cheiftain Belladonna."

"G-Greetings," Blake murmured, stepping forward cautiously. "High Leader."

"Blake, please," Sienna said warmly. "You and your parents are like family. There's no need to stand on formality here. I'm just glad to see you have returned to us."

"Blake?" Adam repeated, shooting to his feet. He turned to look at her, and Blake could not contain her flinch when she laid eyes on that damned mask. "My love." His words were flowery, holding none of the contempt or venom with which he spat when she had last seen her. He moved to take a step towards her, and Blake shrunk back, surprised when a shadow passed over her as Jaune stepped between her and Adam.

"Move, Human," Adam sneered. "Before I move you."

Blake watched, awestruck, as Jaune, covered in cuts and bruises, hands bound in front of him, stood unwavering in front of Adam. Even after being starved and tortured for two weeks in a desperate and risky political move by her family, here he stood, still trying to protect his friends.

"Sorry," Jaune growled unapologetically, his voice carrying a strange twang, reminding Blake of some of the inner-city Faunus she had met during White Fang missions in Mistral. "I don't take orders from abusive punks like you."

Adam's jaw tightened, and he placed a hand on the sword at his waist as he took a step forward.

"Adam," Sienna called out, stopping him before he could slice Jaune to ribbons. Leaning forward, she examined Jaune as if he were a slab of meat. "So," she purred, "this is the human that has caused so much trouble for my predecessor and his family."

"My parents sent me to escort him to you, so that you might bring him to justice," Blake explained, the words that would condemn her friend bitter on her tongue even now. "As well as to ensure that I deliver this message to you personally, for your eyes only." Reaching into her pocket, Blake pulled out Ilia's scroll, fighting to keep her expression even as she passed Adam while Corsac and Fennec stiffened.

Sienna accepted the scroll, opening it to read the message that Blake's father had written while Blake remained where she was, rooted in place. She knew already what was on there: a complete transcript of the interrogation of Gerard the Farmer Jaune had helped not long after they had arrived on Menagerie. The man had nearly forced his way into her parent's house to confess, and shared everything he knew about the operations of the White Fang within their homeland.

"And your father is certain?" Sienna asked, her gaze fixed upon the words before her.

"He included the original recording for you to verify," Blake answered.

"I see," Sienna growled, lowering the scroll as she glared at the two brothers. "Tell me, Corsac, Fennec... when I sent you to Menagerie to act as emissaries of our organization within our homeland, how long did it take for you to start extorting our own people?"

"High Leader -"

"A week?" Sienna continued. "A month? What is the proper holding period during which one must wait before risking our entire organization in order to seize power in a land the Faunus already rule."

"High Leader Khan," Fennec muttered, his olive skin paling as he and his brother struggled to defend themselves. "We merely wanted to ensure the continued support and recruitment numbers..."

"By blackmailing and extorting our own people?!" Sienna roared. "Not to mention releasing Grimm upon them!"

"We were simply following orders," Corsac muttered, faltering underneath the aura of power that Sienna exuded.

"Who's orders?" Sienna asked, her voice low and dangerous.

There was a moment of silence before Adam rose to his feet and looked up at the High Leader in defiance. "Mine."

Sienna's face twisted into a snarl while Adam smirked, nodding to the guards on either side of the throne, who raised their spears and pointed them at her and Blake.

"You traitor," Sienna hissed. "The White Fang will not stand for this."

"They will when I tell them how the mighty Sienna Khan fell by the hands of a murderous human," Adam replied smugly. He turned to Jaune walked forward, his smile turned vicious as he got right up in his face. "And I just so happen to have the perfect volunteer, right here."

Jaune smiled sardonically, before whipping his head forward with a loud _crack_! With a cry of pain, Adam fell to the grow, shards of his mask flying everywhere while a small trickle of blood dripped down Jaune's face from his forehead.

"There," Jaune declared, his expression haughty in what looked like a decent impression of Weiss as the guards abandoned her and Sienna to point their spears at his throat. "That should help sell the story."

"Corsac, Fennec," Sienna snarled. "How could you?"

"It is simply the way of things," Fennec replied calmly.

"Like Ghira before you, the time has come for a stronger leader to guide the Faunus to their rightful place above humanity."

"I think that's our cue to leave," Jaune said, the strange accent with which he spoke earlier gone.

"You aren't going anywhere," Adam snarled, climbing to his feet. The scar tissue in the shape of the letters SDC covering his right eye crinkled in his rage as he looked between them. "Kill the human and Khan. I want Blake for myself."

Panic gripped Blake's heart, and she felt herself freeze as she watched Adam approach. Sienna, unencumbered by the same fear that imprisoned Blake, launched out of her seat, Dust-whip at the ready, only for Adam to unsheathe Wilt and slice her along the abdomen, shattering the woman's Aura in a single blow and leaving a long trail of blood across her torso as she tumbled to the ground at Jaune's feet.

"It's so kind of you to return to me, my love," Adam crooned. "You saved me the time of having to look for you."

Blake's retort died in her throat, her will fading with every step he took toward her. In her mind, she watched Yang burst into the room over and over, selfishly wishing she would do so once more, despite what her last attempt to rescue Blake had cost. Unfortunately, there was no fiery blonde here to sacrifice for her safety. She felt completely alone, unable to even draw Gambol Shroud from her back as Adam mounted the last step and now looked down on her.

"You and I have a lot of catching up to do," he murmured, taking another step forward with his arm outstretched.

Moments before his gloved hand made contact with her tearstained cheek, a loud rumbling shook the entire throne room, throwing a couple of the guards off their feet. Blake felt a momentary vertigo, not unlike the feeling of an elevator beginning its decent, while Adam, the Albain brothers and the guards struggled to stay standing.

"Funny thing, Gravity Dust," Jaune yelled over the rumbling, his Aura shining around him as he remained planted to the floor. "It can lift an entire island into the air. Without it, though," he shrugged, a cheeky grin on his face.

"Kill him!" Adam shouted, as Blake took the opportunity to run around him to join Jaune, her movements unimpared by the falling island. Shocked back into action, she had no trouble drawing Gambol Shroud and block a strike from the nearest guard.

Jaune's smile faded, and he reached down to his boot, where he pulled out a wicked-looking knife, smirking as Corsac realised belatedly that it was his own. His expression turned stony once more as the nearest guard approached him, and he danced underneath the man's spear, the knife glowing with Jaune's silvery Aura as he swiftly planted it in the man's neck. Grabbing the fallen guard's spear, Jaune whirled around, knocking another one out before hurling it into the gut of another, his Aura making it look like a shooting star.

"STOP!" Adam screamed, unsheathing his blade and rushing at Jaune in what Blake knew to be a killing blow. Jaune dove to the ground, snatching Blake's bag and holding it between himself and Wilt. Adam's attack was halted with a dull _thunk_, and Jaune quickly reached into the ruin bag with one hand, pulling out his sword and extending it to its full length, while pointing the other one, palm out, at Adam and focusing the power of the Dust beneath their feet, sending him flying across the room.

"We have to go!" Jaune cried, taking a moment to grab his armor and shield and hastily strap it on while Blake fended off the remaining guard and Fennec, who had drawn an identical blade to the one Jaune had stolen from his brother. Another pulse of Aura, and the rest of their opponents were sent flying like Adam had, the velocity of the island crashing to the lake below making them almost float through the air. Grabbing Sienna and tossing her over his shoulder, Jaune nodded to Blake, and the two of them sprinted out of the throne room, into the twisting halls of the White Fang base. Alarms sounded behind them, but Blake easily dispatched anyone who tried to shakily halt them from leaving.

"So, your master plan was to crash an entire island into the ground?" Blake shouted as they ran.

"Oi! I'd like to see do better!" Jaune cried, this time speaking with an accent not dissimilar to the ones heard in the town around Vale. "Besides, that was just a wee bit of improvisation. _Your_ daddy's the one who came up with the idea of usin' me to break in here. If he had wanted me off Menagerie, I'd've taken the first boat outta there."

"_You_ agreed to this!" Blake shouted back. "Mister 'I-Hate-Politics' and 'I-Just-Want-To-Take-Contracts-And-Kill-People'!"

Jaune's face twitched momentarily before resuming its indignant expression. "And now you see _why_ I hate politics and just want to take contracts!"

Blake rolled her eyes as the ground leveled off, and they approached the exit to the base. Running through the woods, they approached the landing pad just in time to watch the bullhead on which they had arrived to the island, shake and tumble its way off the edge of the island, plummeting to the lake below.

"Alright," Jaune admitted, speaking normally once more barely winded from their run, even with Sienna draped over his shoulders. "That _was_ my bad."

"Great," Blake hissed. "What do we do n-AAAAGGHH!" Before she could finish her sentence, something heavy slammed into her, knocking her off the side of the island. Arms wrapped around her, telling Blake that it was Jaune who had just tackled them both off the island to fall, presumably to their deaths, into the waters still hundreds of feet below.

The last thought that Blake had before they slammed into the blue face of Lake Matsu was a solemn promise to skewer Jaune if they somehow survived this.

**A/N: And this is what I had really wanted to get to. It had become apparent really quick that I was going to have trouble getting Blake and Jaune off Menagerie without taking forever to handle the issues with the Fang there. Eventually, I decided that, rather than spend an entire arc with them doing that, I can move things along by having them (sort of) lose. Rather than have the human come to their home and set everything right, I decided it would be more interesting if, after everything they've gone through, the people of Menagerie turned their backs on him once he proved, to them at least, that he was just like every other human. Now we have Adam in control of the Fang, Jaune and Blake are in Anima, and Jaune has started acting strange for some reason. Anyways, I hope you guys liked this, and tell me what you think in the reviews.**

**TTFN :)**


	12. Chapter 12

Aura. In the constant battle against the forces of the Grimm, the power of one's soul has been hailed for its efficiency as both deadly weapon and stalwart defender against the dark creatures. All people were born with it, and to have one's Aura unlocked strengthened the body to superhuman levels of strength and durability. Those who further trained themselves could push past even those limits, achieving skills and power spoken about only in legend.

Countless studies have been made into understanding and harnessing the power of the soul. For the most part, the focus of academia has centered around the more quantifiable aspects of Aura-theory, and, in a world constantly under threat of destruction, its uses in combat.

This battle-hardened mentality was necessary in much of Remnant if one cared about their continued survival, but it was tragically narrow-minded; if something could not immediately show potential to protect and serve you or your loved ones, it was quickly thrown to the wayside - dismissed as little more than a momentary curiosity…

Humans and Faunus were not the only creatures on Remnant with an Aura. Everything, from the smallest insect to the largest animal possessed it. Trillions of souls, shining like stars, exploding into being with every birth, and fading with every death. Not just them, Remnant itself shone through the void like the sun. Every blade of grass and colossal tree, every mountain and stone, every lake, ocean, and drop of rain, every gentle breeze and howling gale. All of them glowed and swirled around the constellations of lives in a nebulous cradle.

Touch was the first anchor within this dancing galaxy of power. Sensation and vibration churned through the roiling tides of energy, the first impressions of a world beyond the metaphysical. The softest footstep of the smallest creature created ripples of information, resonating with all they passed through. A shift in the air, calm and soothing to most brought word of a storm in the near future. The heat of a fire, warming skin. It was a cacophony of information, and, when as the other senses joined in one by one, it became overwhelming. The anchor threatened to drown him.

But it was within this cascade of information, however, that he scraped and clawed and pieced himself together once again. Everything he felt, all the sounds he heard, the air he smelled and tasted shaped and warped the living aether flowing around and through him. Taking his time, he carefully catalogued each sensation, slowly creating a sphere of awareness that faded in specificity and detail the further it stretched. At the very centre of that sphere was a specific light amongst the others, and he quickly concluded that to be _him. _

But who was he?

"You're awake," a voice called out, familiar, like a dream half-forgot.

Sitting by a small campfire were three women. The first two were Faunus (and he briefly wondered how he knew what a Faunus was), an older and a younger. The older watched him with a mixture of disdain and heavily concealed curiosity, while the younger watched him with the careful concern not often held for strangers within her glowing yellow eyes. Did he know her?

"Jaune," the voice called out once more, and he turned towards the last of the women. She was tall - taller than the other two at least - with pale blonde hair tied up in a neat bun. Bright green eyes shone behind a pair of ovular glasses, watching him as a mother would a sick child.

"Jaune?" He repeated. Was that him? Was he Jaune? Memories flashed behind his eyes at the sound of the name. Red hair, soft lips… and _pain_. Fresher and more intense than any of the ghosts or shadows that had buzzed in his mind, like bees in a hive. Amidst hundreds of lives, and trillions of memories, this one brought with it a crushing tightness in his chest, forcing the air from his lungs in a painful gasp.

"That's right, Jaune," the blonde woman cooed soothingly. "Remember her. Remember yourself."

"It hurts," he whimpered, leaning into the arms that had wrapped around his shoulders.

"I know," she murmured, stroking his hair.

Gritting his teeth, he grasped onto that pain. Tears leaked from his eyes, and the nebulous energy surrounded him, comforting him just as much as the soft embrace within which he found himself. He held it close as the shadows and ghosts washed over him, until, finally, he surfaced in the placid waters of _himself._ His time at Beacon. The friends he made. His team. Ren. Nora. _Her. _The memories helped buoy him, a vessel in the sea of voices begging for his attention.

"Jaune," the younger of the two faunus - _Blake _\- called out with uncertainty. "Are you alright?"

Jaune was on his feet before he could even contemplate replying, sword in hand as he turned towards the void stalking behind them. In a flash of silver light, he buried the blade to the hilt in the throat of the approaching Ursa, a wet gurgle bubbling from its snout in place of any sort of roar as the baleful glow of its eyes dimmed and it dissolved into ash on the wind.

"Sorry," he muttered, allowing the momentary frustration he felt with himself to pass as a hand touched his shoulder.

"It's quite alright, Jaune," the blonde woman replied, a soft, sad smile on her face.

"Professor Goodwitch?" Jaune asked, his mind recalling his first time seeing the woman, holographically, on the ride to Beacon, followed by her tough but fair instruction as he struggled to catch up with classmates who had trained their entire lives. "What are you doing here?"

"I was wondering the same thing, actually," Blake added quietly from her seat near the older Faunus woman. "It seems unlikely that you just happened to be in the area in time to fish the three of us out of that lake."

"That would be because I was waiting for you, Miss Belladonna," Goodwitch replied evenly, her expression stoney and closed off compared to the open concern he had seen when she looked at him.

"I should have known Ozpin would be the one behind this," the woman sitting next to Blake hissed angrily. She glanced between him and Blake and scoffed. "He's recruiting younger than I would have expected. Of course, I guess the opportunity provided by having a traitor as one of his pawns would be too good to pass up."

Jaune hissed himself as a flurry of emotions surged through him from the ghosts beneath the waters, some of them expressed unwavering faith and indignation, but most seemed to be trying to overwhelm him with resentment. His own annoyance at the way the woman addressed Blake - a girl even the ghosts acknowledged as _Friend_ \- and the way her ears drooped as she avoided their gazes, centered him and brought his more recent memories to the forefront.

"I called her," he ground out.

The ghosts were making waves that threatened to capsize his little vessel of _self, _and, not unwilling to reinforce it with that same pain he had recalled earlier and risk attracting more Grimm, he stared hard at Blake, forcing himself to recall the last couple of months he had spent with her and her family. The way she tensed before relaxing more than he had ever seen whenever her father entered the room. The way she unconsciously reached for her mother's warmth whenever they were near. The smile on her face as she helped the people of Kuo Kuana. These memories reinforced his identity, protecting him from the sea of others trying to swallow him. Within the confines of that protection, he recalled yet one more memory: pinning her to the ground in Ma'Ula to stop her from rushing back into the arms of someone who had tormented her, staring into glowing, tear-filled eyes and promising himself that he would protect her. He would not fail this time.

The waters calmed as the weight of his identity was no longer supported solely by the pain he felt. Resolve eased that burden and the tightness in his chest loosened.

"You called her?" Blake asked, her delicate brows furrowed in confusion.

Jaune nodded, his memories clearer and more readily available now. "I didn't like our chances on our own, so I had your dad send her a message detailing what was going on."

"As soon as you both came within range of Anima's CCT, I was able to track Jaune's scroll." Her eyes narrowed and she turned back to glare at him, every bit as intimidating as on his first day of class. "Imagine my surprise when I arrive at Lake Matsu, and, rather than receiving any sort of signal, I get to watch one of the islands fall out of the sky, with you three not far behind."

Jaune flushed in embarrassment and chuckled sheepishly, scratching the back of his neck as he tried to think of an excuse. "Heh, sorry, Professor -" her eyes narrowed further, though there was an undercurrent of sadness before Jaune's memory corrected him once more. "Er… Glynda. I didn't mean to worry you."

"Glynda?" Blake repeated, her expression of shock and confusion funny enough to make Jaune wish he could take a picture for posterity. The other Faunus woman sitting next to her - Sienna Khan - chuckled darkly.

"I figured you used that riding crop for more than just fighting, Goodwitch, but taking a student as your toy? That's rich!"

Said riding crop snapped out and slapped across Sienna's cheek, leaving a red mark at the point of impact.

"Typical human," Sienna spat. "Using force to keep us down when -"

She was cut off by the whistle of Jaune's sword through the air as he swung it harshly towards the ground, flinging whatever lingering gore from the Ursa remained off its blade before he crouched and grabbed his shield and armor from the bag on the ground. He frowned at the dent in his spaulder when he used the bag to block Adam's sword. Pressing the button hidden in his sword's hilt, the blade collapsed with a whine from the mechanisms inside, unhappy from the lake water soaking through them, and he sighed.

"So, my memory's still a little foggy, but I'm pretty sure Blake and I kept you from getting viciously murdered by that katana-carrying sociopath, and Glynda fished us out of the water after that same nutbar turned your entire organization against you. You'd think that would at least warrant better manners."

"If you're supposed to be my gallant rescuers, why am I still tied up, Human?"

Jaune shrugged, strapping his armor on. "You have a bondage fetish?" He hissed as Glynda swatted him over the head, and forced himself to meet her gaze. His head was still pounding, and, even though he knew he probably owed Blake some sort of explanation, he couldn't find the right words - especially not with Khan snarling at them. Glynda, seemingly reading his mind, waved her riding crop, summoning a small fishing rod to her that she handed to him. "If you could grab us some dinner, please."

Jaune nodded. "Stay safe." He smiled once more to Glynda and proceeded to march out of the ring of light provided by the campfire in the direction he knew the lake to be, determined to run through the gambit of fully piecing himself back together once more.

**A/N: No real excuse for taking so long with this other than a lack of motivation/depression, I guess. Either way, this is actually only half of what I wanted to post, but I was having trouble, and figured that just posting this might help motivate me to finishing the other half. That being said, I did slave over this for entirely too long, so hopefully you guys like it. I dunno when the next one will come up, but hopefully it won't be as long a break as this one was. **

**Anyway, thanks for reading, and telling me what you guys think. I love reading your thoughts and theories - that one that hypothesized that Jaune was Ozpin's next reincarnation was actually what got me off my butt and made me post this (he's not, by the way), so thanks!**

**TTFN**


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